Future Directions in Violence Against Women Research

As a nurse researcher and forensic nurse who has cared for patients who have experienced sexual or intimate partner violence for over a decade, I want to highlight a few key areas in which I think NIH has the ability to focus efforts to impact the field immensely.

1. Dedicated resources for systematic state and national data collection regarding violence prevention and response in health, justice, and social service settings. Such a focus is critical to nearly all the priority areas described in this RFI. Our current ability to understand both what is happening to diverse groups of the population and how healthcare interventions impact health is limited by a lack of data at scale. Limited individual hospital or jurisdiction data exist for outcomes such as the number of patients, type of violence, demographic information, etc. In many cases, this data is not consistent or comparable between hospitals or within a state. However, understanding state and national policy changes in this patient population is critical to identifying additional opportunities for prevention and response. Data at scale can also identify and address gaps in access to or treatment for marginalized people. Even though national datasets have significant limitations, the National Crime Victimization Survey collects data routinely on prevalence but does so at the expense of vast measurement concerns and limits the depth of information gathered. The National Sexual Violence and Intimate Partner Violence Survey occurs less frequently and can collect more detailed information but cannot be linked to justice or advocacy system care seeking or outcomes that are part of a holistic multidisciplinary response to these patient concerns. Partnerships with other agencies and funders such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the Office on Violence Against Women at the National Institutes of Justice who have interests that align regarding prevention or response to violence but without a focus on health outcomes to create a shared national research agenda, databases, and repositories may minimize redundancies and improve our overall understanding of the phenomena of violence against women.