Rock Daniel J, Judd Kevin, Hallmayer Joachim F
Centre for Clinical Research in Neuropsychiatry, Graylands Hospital and School of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, University of Western Australia, Australia.
Injury. 2008 Sep;39(9):1047-53. doi: 10.1016/j.injury.2008.03.025. Epub 2008 Jul 26.
Investigating the seasonal asymmetry of violent behaviour has a long history. Despite this, there still remains considerable debate about the nature and aetiology of this phenomenon. Reports on homicide, for example, are mixed: some have found homicide seasonality but most have not. In contrast, all published studies on assault report that this behaviour is seasonal. Moreover, only two studies, both using US data, have examined the seasonal variation of assault and homicide in the same population over the same period of time. One group found assault was seasonal but homicide was not, whilst the other found, overall, that both homicide and assault were seasonal. This first of these findings seems paradoxical, in that there is no seasonal variation in injury related deaths (i.e. homicides), despite the antecedent behaviour (i.e. assaults) having a seasonal pattern of occurrence. We examined the seasonal variation in homicide and assault in UK and found a similar result. Furthermore, our findings are not easily understandable using conventional social models of seasonal behaviour and we suggest biologically mediated seasonal variation in the capacity of equally injured individuals to survive trauma may also play a role, which should be investigated further.
对暴力行为的季节性不对称性进行研究已有很长历史。尽管如此，关于这一现象的本质和病因仍存在大量争议。例如，关于杀人案的报告参差不齐：一些研究发现了杀人案的季节性，但大多数研究并未发现。相比之下，所有已发表的关于攻击行为的研究都报告称这种行为具有季节性。此外，仅有两项研究（均使用美国数据）在同一时期对同一人群中的攻击行为和杀人案的季节性变化进行了考察。一组研究发现攻击行为具有季节性，但杀人案没有；而另一组研究总体上发现杀人案和攻击行为都具有季节性。这些发现中的第一个似乎自相矛盾，即尽管先行行为（即攻击行为）具有季节性发生模式，但与伤害相关的死亡（即杀人案）却没有季节性变化。我们研究了英国杀人案和攻击行为的季节性变化，发现了类似的结果。此外，使用传统的季节性行为社会模型很难理解我们的发现，我们认为同等受伤个体在创伤后存活能力的生物介导季节性变化可能也起到了作用，对此应进一步展开研究。
