Intimate Partner Violence Surveillance

Violence against women (VAW) incorporates intimate partner violence (IPV), sexual violence by any perpetrator, and other forms of violence against women (e.g., physical violence committed by acquaintances or strangers). Available data suggest that violence against women is a substantial public health problem in the United States. Police data indicate that 3,631 females died in 1996 as the result of homicide (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1997). Thirty percent of these women were known to have been murdered by a spouse or ex-spouse. Data on nonfatal cases of assault are less easily accessible, but
recent survey data suggest that approximately 1.3 million women have been physically assaulted annually and approximately 200,000 women have been raped annually by a current or former intimate partner. Data on lifetime experiences suggest that approximately 22 million women were physically assaulted and approximately 7.8 million women were raped by a current or former intimate partner. Although these and other statistics are sufficient to suggest the magnitude of the problem, some people believe that statistics
on VAW under-represent the scale of the problem, and others believe that reports of violence against women are exaggerated.

This is intended for voluntary use by individuals and organizations interested in gathering surveillance data on intimate partner violence. The document is not meant as a set of mandates, but rather is intended to promote and improve consistency of IPV surveillance. If the recommended data elements can be uniformly recorded and the data made available to numerous users, then better estimates of the incidence and prevalence of IPV can be obtained and problems such as data incompatibility and high costs of collecting, linking, and using data can be substantially reduced.