Domestic violence in the United States: causes and health effects

Domestic violence is a negative term in most cases which may cause some emotional reactions when it is used in conversation. Researching and learning about domestic violence in the United States serves to gain more knowledge about the topic so that it can be better understood. The purpose of this essay is to synthesize the findings of my research that I conducted on this subject in order to bring a clearer picture to what this topic consists of. I will present four differing aspects on this topic done by several different sources and bring these individual contributions together to form a consensus of the topic.

The World Health Organization recently conducted in their words, a "landmark study" on domestic violence. The report was released 24 November, 2005 in which it contained information supporting " the enormous toll physical and sexual violence by husbands and partners has on the health and well-being of women around the world and the extent to which partner violence is still largely hidden." This report is a global perspective on the idea of domestic violence. Although the specific target of my research deals with domestic violence that occurs in the United States, this world view is helpful to contextualize America's problem as it relates to the rest of the world.

The study itself is based on interview with more than 24,000 women from rural and urban areas in 10 countries, mostly third world nations. In this study it found that "one quarter to one half of all women who had been physically assaulted by their partners said that they had suffered physical injuries as a direct result. The abused women were also twice as likely as non-abused women to have poor health and physical and mental problems, even if the violence occurred years before. This includes suicidal thoughts and attempts, mental distress, and physical symptoms like pain, dizziness and vaginal discharge."

This article is helpful because it signifies the common problems of domestic violence as a world and global problem. However, this report does not create a full picture of my particular inquiry. Men and children were not involved in this study, leaving out a large group of the abuse population. America is unique in many facets of its culture suggesting that altough the problem of domestic violence is everywhere in the world, a more specific solution may be needed in regional and local areas of this problem.

Source 2

Wilt & Olson (1996) compiled a useful report that contained much important data about the prevalence of domestic violence in America. This report much like the World Health Organization's focused only on women. The report attempted to link several factors together in order to achieve a clearer understanding of how this phenomenon of violence manifests. Such factors such as age, pregnancy status, marital status, socio-economic status, race, ethnicity and drug and alcohol use were used as qualitative factors that were investigated in their report.

This article contains many tables and charts that help give a mathematical representation to the arguments the authors are presenting. There investigation of the statistical importance of the studies used for their analysis demonstrates the rigor and sophistication of their methods of analysis. The article eventually concludes that "both the popular and professional literatures have misrepresented domestic violence study findings, frequently overstating the extent of the problem. Systematic research in domestic violence is relatively new, and the violence among intimate partners in America is quite high and report that 8% to 12% of women experience some form of domestic violence " (p.21).

Source 4

The final source used for this research project comes from a report issued by the American Bar Association. In this report, statistics with very little analysis is presented. Sources are quoted throughout out the online report which directs the origin of the information.

Numeric facts are presented that include selections: " in 2000, 1,247 women and 440 men were killed by an intimate partner. In recent years, an intimate partner killed approximately 33% of female murder victims and 4% of male murder victims," and " Women are more likely to be victims of sexual violence than men: 78% of the victims of rape and sexual assault are women and 22% are men." This report is nothing but these factoids without context. This statistical-only method of presentation is useful but only to a point. Although the information is backed up it lacks cohesiveness that presents the research in a logical and rational manner.

Conclusions

Domestic violence cannot be reduced to a simple discussion and needs much more exploration to fully gather a better understanding on the subject. While certain facts and figures can be spewed at great lengths, context and practical understanding about what these numbers really mean is missing. Until better and more limiting definitions are used about the terms discussed and related to domestic violence, this discussion will continue for much longer and ignorance will prevail.