Homicides by intimate partners are increasing, driven primarily by gun violence after almost four decades of decline, according to a recent study looking at gender and homicide.

The number of victims rose to 2,237 in 2017, a 19 percent increase from the 1,875 killed in 2014, said James Alan Fox, a criminologist and professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University and an author of the research. The majority of the victims in 2017 were women, a total of 1,527.

Over all, gun-related domestic killings increased by 26 percent from 2010 to 2017, which Dr. Fox said was cause for alarm. In 2017, 926 of the 1,527 women murdered by partners were killed with guns. In 2014, it was 752 of 1,321 women.

The study, which was written with a colleague, Emma E. Fridel, and published last month, used data obtained from the F.B.I. It was first reported by HuffPost.