Violence and Threats of Violence Against Women and Men in the United States, 1994-1996 (ICPSR 2566)

Time Period(s) View help for Time Period(s)

Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection

Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes

Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose

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. When this survey was conceived, many gaps remained in the understanding of violence against women, despite the large amount of research on violence against women, particularly in the areas of rape and intimate partner violence. Empirical data on the relationship between certain types of violence against women, such as childhood victimization and subsequent adult victimization, were limited. Reliable information on minority women's experiences with violence and on the consequences of violence against women, including rates of injury and use of medical services, was also limited. To provide a context in which to place women's experiences, the NVAW Survey sampled both women and men. The survey was designed to accomplish the following goals: (1) to provide reliable estimates of the prevalence and incidence of various forms of violence against women, including rape, physical assault, and stalking, (2) to provide descriptive data on victims and perpetrators, including male-to-female and female-to-male intimate partners and victims of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, (3) to provide descriptive data on the physical, psychological, and social consequences of violent victimization, including injured victims' use of medical services, (4) to examine the links between threats of violence and actual occurrences of violence, (5) to examine the links between victimization, fear of violence, and coping strategies, (6) to examine how women respond to specific victimization, including their involvement in the criminal justice system, (7) to provide information on violence perpetrated on men and women by same-sex intimate partners, and (8) to provide comparable information on the experiences of men that would permit comparisons of the prevalence of violence and severity of injury suffered by women as opposed to men abused by intimates.

Study Design View help for Study Design

The National Violence Against Women Survey was conducted by interviewers at Schulman, Ronca, Bucuvalas, Inc. (SRBI), a national survey research organization in New York City, under the direction of Dr. John Boyle. Survey design and data analysis were conducted by the principal investigators of this study. Following an extensive pre-test, completed interviews were obtained using a computer-assisted interviewing system 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 during 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 during 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 their victimization, 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. Both male and female respondents were queried about their experiences with emotional abuse, threats, and violence by same-sex intimate partners. Interviewers were trained to recognize and respond appropriately to cues indicating that the respondent may have been concerned about being overheard. Telephone numbers of local support services (e.g., domestic violence shelters, rape crisis hotlines, child protective services) were offered to respondents who disclosed current abuse or who appeared in distress. Initial telephone contact with households was attempted during hours of the day and days of the week that had the greatest probability of respondent contact. 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. A Spanish-language translation was administered by bilingual interviewers for Spanish-speaking respondents.

Sample View help for Sample

The sample was drawn as a national, random-digit dialing (RDD) sample of telephone households in the United States. The sample was stratified by U.S. Census region, and within regional strata a simple random sample of working, residential, "hundreds banks" phone numbers was drawn. A randomly generated two-digit number was appended to each randomly sampled hundreds bank to produce the full 10-digit phone number. Nonworking and nonresidential numbers were screened out. The most-recent-birthday method was used to systematically select the designated respondent in households with multiple eligible respondents.

Universe View help for Universe

All men and women in the United States 18 years of age or older.

Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation

Data Source View help for Data Source

Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)

Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables

The questionnaires contained 14 sections, each covering a different topic. Section A of the survey asked respondents about their fear of violence and accommodation behavior. Variables from Section A include the respondent's overall assessment of whether personal safety for women had improved since the respondent was a child, or whether violent crime, domestic violence, sexual harassment, and sexual assault were more of a problem today. Respondents also indicated how concerned they were about their personal safety and about being stalked, whether they had ever been stalked and by whom, whether they carried something to defend themselves or to alert others and, if so, how often, and what they carried. Section B recorded respondent characteristics, including information on age, employment, medical coverage, education, race, number of adults and number of children living with the respondent, personal income, household income, and telephone service. Health-related variables include general assessment of health, whether the respondent had ever sustained a serious injury, had a chronic health condition, or had a chronic mental health condition and, if so, the ages at onset, and information on pregnancies, depression, alcohol use, and drug use. Section C recorded information on the number of the respondent's current and past marital and opposite-sex and same-sex cohabitating relationships. Section D recorded characteristics of the respondent's current relationship and current spouse/partner, including how long they had known each other, how long they lived together, and how long they were married, as well as the spouse/partner's age, employment, education, race, income, general health, and alcohol use. Section E obtained information on power, control, and emotional abuse by each spouse or partner. Specific variables include whether the spouse/partner had a hard time seeing things from the respondent's point of view, was jealous or possessive, provoked arguments, limited the respondent's contact with family or friends, insisted on knowing who the respondent was with at all times, called the respondent names, made the respondent feel inadequate, was frightened of the respondent, shouted or swore at the respondent, frightened the respondent, prevented the respondent from access to family income, prevented the respondent from working outside the home, or insisted on changing residences even when the respondent did not need or want to. Sections F through I screened for incidents of rape, physical assault, stalking, and threat victimization, respectively. Variables include screening questions specific to each type of victimization followed by variables identifying the relationship of each type of perpetrator to the respondent (current spouse, ex-spouse, male live-in partner, female live-in partner, other relative, acquaintance, or stranger), and then repeated to identify which spouse or partner (from current up to eight previous), specific relative, specific acquaintance (boyfriend/girlfriend/date, other men/boys, other women/girls, various other acquaintance categories), or male or female stranger. Sections J through M provide 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 section, information is provided on the victimization, including number of times the victimization happened, if the incident occurred while the respondent was still in a relationship with the perpetrator, first and last time the incident happened, if the incident happened in the last 12 months, who was first to use force, drug or alcohol use at the time of the incident, resulting pregnancies, weapon use, injuries, medical, dental, and mental health care, how care was covered, days the respondent took off from various activities, reporting of the incident to the police or to others, if the respondent obtained a restraining order, if the offender violated the restraining order, if criminal charges were filed, if the offender was convicted, if the offender was sentenced to jail or prison, and if the respondent was satisfied with how he/she was treated during the court process. Section N recorded information about violence in the respondent's current relationship, including whether the respondent ever left the relationship, and if so, how many days he/she stayed away and where he/she stayed, the reason he/she returned home, if violence increased or decreased after returning home, if the spouse/partner ever left the relationship because of their violence toward the respondent, and how many different times they left. Variables also include information on children living with the respondent at the time of the incident, if the spouse/partner received counseling for their violent behavior, and if the respondent thought the violent behavior had stopped. The section concludes with variables 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.

Response Rates View help for Response Rates

Participation rates were calculated using the following formula: the number of completed interviews, including those that were screened out as ineligible, divided by the total number of completed interviews, screened-out interviews, refusals, and terminated interviews. Using this formula, the household participation rate was 72.1 percent in the female survey and 68.9 percent in the male survey. Of the eligible respondents who started the interview, 97 percent of the women and 98 percent of the men followed the survey through to completion. Five completed interviews with men were eliminated from the sample during data editing due to an excessive amount of incongruous data.

Presence of Common Scales View help for Presence of Common Scales

The Depression Inventory was based on questions contained in the SF-36 Health Survey, U.S. Acute Version, 1.0. Many of the questions included in the "Power, Control, and Emotional Abuse" section were adopted from the Canadian Violence Against Women Survey (see Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, 19th Floor, R.H. Coats Building, Ottawa, Canada K1A 0T6). The twelve items on physical victimization were adaptations of items in the Conflict Tactics Scales (Straus, 1979, #4629). Several Likert-type scales were also used.

Original Release Date View help for Original Release Date

1999-11-10

Version History View help for Version History