Violence and Threats of Violence Against Women and Men in the United States, 1994-1996

To further the understanding of violence against women, the
 National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and the National Center for Injury
 Prevention and Control (NCIPC), Centers for Disease Control and
 Prevention (CDC), jointly sponsored the National Violence Against
 Women (NVAW) Survey. To provide a context in which to place women's
 experiences, the NVAW Survey sampled both women and men. Completed
 interviews were obtained from 8,000 women and 8,005 men who were 18
 years of age or older residing in households throughout the United
 States. The female version of the survey was fielded from November
 1995 to May 1996. The male version of the survey was fielded during
 February to May 1996. Spanish versions of both the male and female
 surveys were fielded from April to May 1996. Respondents to the NVAW
 Survey were queried about (1) their general fear of violence and the
 ways in which they managed their fears, (2) emotional abuse they had
 experienced by marital and cohabitating partners, (3) physical assault
 they had experienced as children by adult caretakers, (4) physical
 assault they had experienced as adults by any type of perpetrator, (5)
 forcible rape or stalking they had experienced by any type of
 perpetrator, and (6) incidents of threatened violence they had
 experienced by any type of perpetrator. Respondents disclosing
 victimization were asked detailed questions about the characteristics
 and consequences of victimization as they experienced it, including
 injuries sustained and use of medical services. Incidents were
 recorded that had occurred at any time during the respondent's
 lifetime and also those that occurred within the 12 months prior to
 the interview. Data were gathered on both male-to-female and
 female-to-male intimate partner victimization as well as abuse by
 same-sex partners. Due to the sensitive nature of the survey, female
 respondents were interviewed by female interviewers. In order to test
 for possible bias caused by the gender of the interviewers when
 speaking to men, a split sample was used so that half of the male
 respondents had female interviewers and the other half had male
 interviewers. The questionnaires contained 14 sections, each covering
 a different topic, as follows. Section A: Respondents' fears of
 different types of violence, and behaviors they had adopted to
 accommodate those fears. Section B: Respondent demographics and
 household characteristics. Section C: The number of current and past
 marital and opposite-sex and same-sex cohabitating relationships of the
 respondent. Section D: Characteristics of the respondent's current
 relationship and the demographics and other characteristics of their
 spouse and/or partner. Section E: Power, control, and emotional abuse
 by each spouse or partner. Sections F through I: Screening for
 incidents of rape, physical assault, stalking, and threat
 victimization, respectively. Sections J through M: Detailed
 information on each incident of rape, physical assault, stalking, and
 threat victimization, respectively, reported by the respondent for
 each type of perpetrator identified in the victimization screening
 section. Section N: Violence in the respondent's current
 relationship, including steps taken because of violence in the
 relationship and whether the violent behavior had stopped. The section
 concluded with items to assess if the respondent had symptoms
 associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. Other variables in the
 data include interviewer gender, respondent gender, number of adult
 women and adult men in the household, number of different telephones
in the household, and region code.

Tags: assault, battered-women, child-abuse, domestic-violence, emotional-abuse, fear-of-crime, rape, stalking, threats, victimization
Organization: Department of Justice