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One-third of women are victimized by intimate partner violence (IPV) in their lifetime; when women are killed, they are often murdered by a previously abusive intimate partner. Risk-informed collaborative interventions, such as domestic violence high risk teams (DVHRTs), use IPV risk assessment to identify and intervene in high-risk IPV cases. This study reports on the development and testing of the Danger Assessment for Law Enforcement (DA-LE), an IPV risk assessment intended for use with DVHRTs. Data were collected through structured telephone interviews from service-seeking survivors of IPV at two time points approximately seven to eight months apart. One sample (n = 570) was used to develop the DA-LE and another (n = 389) was used to test the predictive validity of the instrument using the receiver operating characteristic area under the curve (AUC). The DA-LE predicted near fatal IPV on follow-up with similar or better accuracy than most validated IPV risk assessment instruments (AUC = 0.6864–0.7516). There were no significant differences in predictive validity based on survivor/offender race or ethnicity. The DA-LE has the potential to identify high-risk police-involved IPV cases. Risk-informed collaborative interventions may enhance outcomes for survivors of IPV by holding offenders accountable, increasing help seeking, and reducing future assaults.

Women who experience intimate partner violence (IPV) are often portrayed as helpless victims. Yet many women who experience IPV implement strategies to help them survive the abuse. This qualitative study sought to explore the survivor strategies used by low-income black women who experience IPV. Authors used a semistructured interview guide to survey 26 survivors who reported being in an IPV relationship in the past two years. Thematic analysis revealed three types of survivor strategies used by low-income black women: (1) internal (use of religion and becoming self-reliant), (2) interpersonal (leave the abuser or fight back), and (3) external (reliance on informal, formal, or both kinds of sources of support). This article informs social work practitioners of the strategies used by low-income black women in surviving IPV so that practitioners can develop interventions that support these strategies.

Police officers have a unique opportunity to administer risk assessment at the scene of intimate partner violence (IPV) incidents. This article examines the predictive validity of two IPV risk assessments developed for administration by front line police officers and intended to inform collaborative interventions between the criminal justice and social service systems. The Lethality Screen and the Danger Assessment for Law Enforcement (DA-LE) are short forms of the Danger Assessment and, although similar, function differently and have different uses. The higher specificity of the DA-LE makes it appropriate for informing interventions focused on offender accountability. The high sensitivity of the Lethality Screen casts a wide net to educate and offer advocacy services to victim-survivors of IPV. Using technology to integrate IPV risk assessment within an evidence based practice framework may inform targeted collaborative interventions that reduce future IPV and femicide. Language: en

Gender-based violence (GBV) has been addressed as a policy issue in Nepal since the mid 1990s, yet it was only in 2010 that Nepal developed a legal and policy framework to combat GBV. This article draws on the concepts of agenda setting and framing to analyse the historical processes by which GBV became legitimized as a health policy issue in Nepal and explored factors that facilitated and constrained the opening and closing of windows of opportunity. The results presented are based on a document analysis of the policy and regulatory framework around GBV in Nepal. A content analysis was undertaken. Agenda setting for GBV policies in Nepal evolved over many years and was characterized by the interplay of political context factors, actors and multiple frames. The way the issue was depicted at different times and by different actors played a key role in the delay in bringing health onto the policy agenda. Women’s groups and less powerful Ministries developed gender equity and development frames, but it was only when the more powerful human rights frame was promoted by the country’s new Constitution and the Office of the Prime Minister that legislation on GBV was achieved and a domestic violence bill was adopted, followed by a National Plan of Action. This eventually enabled the health frame to converge around the development of implementation policies that incorporated health service responses. Our explicit incorporation of framing within the Kindgon model has illustrated how important it is for understanding the emergence of policy issues, and the subsequent debates about their resolution. The framing of a policy problem by certain policy actors, affects the development of each of the three policy streams, and may facilitate or constrain their convergence. The concept of framing therefore lends an additional depth of understanding to the Kindgon agenda setting model.

Despite the growing population of immigrant women in the United States and their greater vulnerability to intimate partner violence (IPV), there are no culturally competent instruments to assess the risk of homicide and future violence among abused immigrant women. The current study modifies the Danger Assessment (DA), a risk assessment instrument aimed at identifying victims of IPV who are at risk for lethal violence by an intimate or exintimate partner, for use with immigrant women. A secondary analysis was conducted with 148 immigrant women who participated in a longitudinal risk assessment study. The 20 original DA items and an additional 12 risk items were tested using relative risk ratios for their association with any or severe IPV at a follow-up interview. Predictive validity was tested with the receiver operating characteristic curve. Results indicate support for a revised Danger Assessment for Immigrant Women (DA-I) consisting of 26 items. The DA-I predicts any and severe IPV at a nine-month follow-up significantly better than the original DA and women’s predictions of risk. The DA-I is a culturally competent risk assessment that can be used to assess the risk of reassault and severe IPV to assist immigrant women with safety planning.

This study sought to determine the risk of low birth weight from intimate partner abuse. The case-control design was used in a purposively ethnically stratified multisite sample of 1,004 women interviewed during the 72 hours after delivery between 1991 and 1996. Abuse was determined by the Index of Spouse Abuse and a modification of the Abuse Assessment Screen. Separate analyses were conducted for 252 full term and 326 preterm infants. The final multiple logistic regression models were constructed to determine relative risk for low birth weight after controlling for other complications of pregnancy. Physical and nonphysical abuse as determined by the Index of Spouse Abuse were both significant risk factors for low birth weight for the full term infants but not the preterm infants on a bivariate level. However, the risk estimates decreased in significance in the adjusted models. Although today's short delivery stays make it difficult to assess for abuse, it is necessary to screen for domestic violence at delivery, especially for women who may not have obtained prenatal care. The unadjusted significant risk for low birth weight that became nonsignificant when adjusted suggests that other abuse-related maternal health problems (notably low weight gain and poor obstetric history) are confounders (or mediators) that help to explain the relation between abuse and low birth weight in full term infants.