Health Studies Institute/Family Violence/Excerpt

An Excerpt from the Introduction to
Family Violence:
Responding to Signs of Abuse in Your Patients,
Second Edition

Introduction
Violence and abuse are rampant worldwide, including the United States. For example, in Florida, one person dies at the hands of a spouse, ex-spouse, or cohabitant approximately every 3 days.

Health care workers are often the first persons to recognize inflicted injuries and to ask about their causes. Such observations and inquiries by health care workers can be the turning points for victims, who otherwise might be too fearful or ashamed to reveal their plights.

Demographics
Until the mid-20th century, violence occurring within family units was not widely recognized as a national problem. Then, in the early 1960s, the crusade to increase awareness of child abuse arose, and, in the 1970s, movements to prevent abuse of women and elderly persons emerged.

In the late 1990s, federal agencies studying "domestic violence" replaced that term with "intimate partner violence" to include all intimate partners, current or former, heterosexual or same-sex, cohabiting or not cohabiting.

Each year, several million persons in the United States are victims of violence inflicted by perpetrators, especially in domestic settings. Interpersonal violence has no boundaries. It occurs in all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups.

Because of definitional issues and methodologic differences among statistical surveys, estimates of the numbers of victims are probably low. Surveys do not typically include victims who are homeless, institutionalized, or non-English speaking.