Coordinated public health initiatives to address violence against women and adolescents.

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a well-recognized public health problem. IPV affects women's physical and mental health through direct pathways, such as injury, and indirect pathways, such as a prolonged stress response that leads to chronic health problems. The influence of abuse can persist long after the violence has stopped and women of color are disproportionately impacted. Successfully addressing the complex issue of IPV requires multiple prevention efforts that target specific risk and protective factors across individual, interpersonal, institutional, community, and societal levels. This paper includes examples of community-based, state led and federally funded public health programs focused on IPV along this continuum. Two community-based efforts to increase access to mental health care for low income, women of color who had experienced IPV, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and a telehealth intervention are discussed. Core tenets of a patient-centered comprehensive approach to assessment and responses and strategies for supporting a statewide comprehensive response are described in Project Connect: A Coordinated Public Health Initiative to Prevent Violence Against Women. Project Connect provides technical assistance to grantees funded through the Violence Against Women Act's health title and involves developing, implementing, and evaluating new ways to identify, respond to, and prevent domestic and sexual violence and promote an improved public health response to abuse in states and Native health programs. Health care partnerships with domestic violence experts are critical in order to provide training, develop referral protocols, and to link IPV victims to advocacy services. Survivors need a comprehensive response that addresses their safety concerns and may require advocacy around housing or shelter, legal assistance, and safety planning. Gaps in research knowledge identified are health system readiness to respond to IPV victims in health care settings and partner with domestic violence programs, effects of early IPV intervention, and models for taking interventions to scale.