The Journal of the American Medical Association has published a report which was recently picked up by the Associated Press and printed in a few newspapers, but it deserves more detailed attention primarily because it challenges common assumptions about a serious health and social issue. The study examined 516 patients seeking services in the emergency room of Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is significant however, to note that the rate for intimate partner domestic violence may be greater than what this survey shows. This is because the relationship between victim and assailant was unknown fully a third of the time for men, and a fifth of the time for women. Also, male victims of partner violence may be even more likely than women victims to attribute such injuries to strangers or others.
Males also seek medical attention for all types of ailments at a lower rate than women.
There are many domestic violence victims who do not go to the emergency room, report to police, or answer honestly when asked to list intimate violence by a current partner or former partner in a survey asking about all types of crime especially when their current partner may be present when filling out the Justice Department survey. This is why domestic violence advocates frequently point to work funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and conducted by the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire. These surveys show that nearly two million women are victims of severe domestic violence each year. This is twice the number reported by the Justice Department National Crime Victimization Survey and much more than the 204,400 women injured in the Justice Department emergency room study. The Family Research Laboratory is the source of the often-quoted statistic that a woman is battered by her intimate partner every 15 seconds.