Study Documents Intimate Partner Violence In New York City

According to a study of “Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in New York City” conducted by the New York City Department of Health,

• From 2003 to 2005, nearly half of fatal violence against women (44%) was confirmed to be the result of IPV.
• In 2005, nearly 4,000 NYC women were treated in emergency departments for injuries that they acknowledged were due to IPV.
• Since 1999, physical dating violence reported by public high school females in NYC has risen almost 50%.
• Women at higher risk of death or injury due to IPV include young women, black and Hispanic women and women who live in neighborhoods with very low median income.
• Public high school females reporting dating violence were three times more likely to attempt suicide than thosewho did not report dating violence.
• Women who report fearing an intimate partner had higher levels of asthma and psychological distress than women who do not.
• Binge drinking was twice as high among women reporting fear of a partner.
• Women reporting fear and teens reporting dating violence had much higher levels of risky sexual behaviors, such as having multiple sex partners.
• Few women killed by an intimate partner had criminal justice system protections.
• Only 15% of women killed by an intimate partner had a court-issued active Order of Protection.
• Forty-nine percent had a prior Domestic Incident Report.

Yet as the New York Times reports, doctors are reluctant to see IPV as a public health issue:

“Some advocates even argue that health care professionals screen patients for domestic abuse, as might be done for diseases like cervical cancer. But some physicians take umbrage at being expected to delve into a difficult, messy topic. A United States Preventive Services Task Force on domestic abuse concluded in 2004 that there was insufficient evidence to recommend for or against screening asymptomatic patients for domestic abuse — mainly because of a dearth of large-scale scientific studies looking at this question.”

In other words, since there have been no studies (after all this isn’t something you can cure with an expensive pharmaceutical product), doctors can’t be expected to address this significant factor in women’s health.  It should be pointed out to these misogynist medicos that IPV impacts the lives of far more women than cervical cancer does in this country. And the economic cost of  IPV is enormous.  According to the American Institute on Domestic Violence,

• The health-related costs of rape, physical assault, stalking, and homicide by intimate partners exceed $5.8 billion each year.
• Of this total, nearly $4.1 billion is for victims requiring direct medical and mental health care services.
• Lost productivity and earnings due to intimate partner violence accounts for almost  $1.8 billion each year.
• Intimate partner violence victims lose nearly 8.0 million days of paid work each year – the equivalent of more than 32,000 full-time jobs and nearly 5.6 million days of household productivity.

Kudos to New York City for doing the work to quantify the horrendous problems of Intimate Partner Violence.  Now what to do about it??