More than a black eye: domestic violence does not only include physical violence. Domestic violence is defined as a pattern of abusive or coercive behavior used to gain and maintain power and control over another person. This includes: emotional abuse, financial control, intimidation, pet abuse, sexual coercion and so much more. 

1 in 4 women and 1 in 10 men experienced contact sexual violence, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in her/his lifetime (NISVS, 2017).For transgender and gender nonconforming individuals, more than half (54%) experience some form of intimate partner violence, including acts involving coercive control and physical harm (USTS, 2016)

Women with disabilities are more likely to be abused by an intimate partner then able-bodied woman. People with disabilities are more vulnerable to violence and coercion due in part to isolation and denial of human rights (Nosek et al., 2001). Learn more on how you can better advocate for survivors with disabilities.

Victim-blaming attitudes can marginalize a survivor, making it harder to seek services and heal. When engaging in victim-blaming attitudes, society allows people causing harm to commit relationship abuse while avoiding accountability for those actions. “Victim-blaming attitudes prevent society from acknowledging and changing toxic masculinity and rape culture”. – The Center for Relationship Abuse Awareness.

While the deadly intersection of guns and intimate partner violence affects all women, it has a disproportionate impact on Black, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Hispanic women. In addition, people in the LGBTQ community and people with disabilities are highly vulnerable to severe forms of relationship abuse, but there is alarmingly little data on the intersection of firearms and intimate partner violence among these populations.

Identifying domestic violence in immigrant and refugee communities can be difficult because of the fear associated with disclosure, such as deportation, loss of sponsorship, or community backlash. In today’s particularly anti-immigrant climate, it can be especially difficult for an immigrant or refugee survivor to access services.

Rethinking our approach to intimate partner violence (IPV) through a public health framework, replacing the dominant criminalization strategy, the urgency of violence prevention is elevated, and we can intervene before harm occurs, rather than reacting and incarcerating. A public health approach, compels us to closely examine the social determinants of health that drive violence such as poverty and adverse childhood experiences. It urges us to reconsider the cycles of violence many are trapped in, to address the unequal conditions that foster violence, and to revisit, how, if at all, we foster healing from the trauma violence imprints on our minds and bodies.

Intimate partner homicide is one of the homicide subtypes where there are red flags of potential danger prior to the lethal event, and because of that, there is a great opportunity for prevention…there are avenues that we can use to intervene to prevent the occurrence of the lethal event in intimate partner homicides.

Engaging youth in preventative efforts is a key part to ending domestic violence. Giving them an opportunity to be a co-creator of the effort as opposed to a passive participant, reinforces the importance of their voice and their experiences when it comes to a community free of violence.

Communities whose members experience greater prevalence of domestic violence face barriers to participating in prevention and intervention programs and services, including low-income communities, communities of color, immigrant communities, Native American communities, LGBTQ communities, the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community, and communities of people with disabilities.