High IQ test scores in early adulthood were associated with a reduced risk of death by homicide

In the developing field of violence epidemiology, a series of studies have shown that social factors are associated with the risk of being a victim of homicide. Thus, persons with higher educational credentials, individuals in the professional social classes, and people with higher income experience lower homicide rates. A further individual characteristic, intelligence (IQ), a correlate of these indices of socio-economic circumstances, has recently been shown to be related to the risk of having experienced violent assault in children who were followed until age 17 years. That is, after adjustment for covariates, individuals in the highest IQ scoring group reported a marked reduction in the prevalence of assault in comparison with the lowest IQ scorers. A corollary of these different strands of evidence is that persons with high IQ will have a decreased risk of death due to homicide.