Chicago Women's Health Risk Study, 1995-1998 (ICPSR 3002)

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

Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes

Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose

Despite the current proliferation of intimate violence studies, domestic violence advocates and policymakers in public health and criminal justice are often confused about the efficacy of practical interventions. Under what circumstances is a woman at risk if she terminates an abusive relationship? In what situations does arrest increase or decrease the risk of death? How do stalking and other forms of harassment interact with events and changing circumstances, such as gun ownership or pregnancy, in affecting the risk of a lethal outcome for a victim or offender? The Chicago Women's Health Risk Study was conceived to respond to the increasing need for information that would be vital to medical, public health, and criminal justice agencies, and to domestic violence advocates and educators in building public health and public safety strategies. To help this array of practitioners identify and effectively intervene in potentially life-threatening intimate violence situations, the goal of the CWHRS was to develop a reliable and validated profile of risk factors directly related to lethal outcomes in intimate violence, for use in agencies and organizations working to help women in abusive relationships. Data were collected to draw comparisons between abused women in situations resulting in fatal outcomes and those without fatal outcomes, as well as baseline comparisons between abused women and non-abused women, while taking into account the interaction of numerous events, circumstances, and interventions occurring over the course of a year or two.

Study Design View help for Study Design

The CWHRS used a quasi-experimental design to gather survey data on 705 women at the point of service for any kind of treatment (related to abuse or not) sought at one of four medical sites serving populations in areas with high rates of intimate partner homicide (Chicago Women's Health Center, Cook County Hospital, Erie Family Health Center, and Roseland Public Health Center). Over 2,600 women patients were randomly screened for abuse using a screening questionnaire based on the Intimate Violence Screening Tool. The screener determined if a woman had a history of physical abuse by an intimate partner in the past year and whether she wanted to participate in the study. Although the format of the screening differed slightly for each site, it always included three questions: (1) "Has your intimate partner ever hit, slapped, kicked, or otherwise physically hurt or threatened you?" (2) "Has your intimate partner ever forced you to engage in sexual activities that made you uncomfortable?" and (3) "Are you afraid of your intimate partner?" A woman was categorized as "screened AW (abused woman)" if she answered positively to any of the three questions and met all of the following criteria: the abuse took place within the past year, the abuser was an intimate partner (regardless of gender), and the woman answering was at least 18 years old. Women answering "no" to all questions who were at least 18 years old and who had had an intimate relationship in the past year were categorized as "screened NAW (non-abused woman)." From the women screened, 705 valid initial interviews were conducted, in which supportive and understanding interviewers asked more sensitive questions about the violence. After the interview, 497 women were categorized as AW (they had experienced violence or a violent threat from an intimate partner in the past year), and 208 women were categorized as NAW. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews conducted during 1997-1998 with the women. To ensure anonymity and increase safety and security during the interview process, each initial interview took place in a private and secure room, behind a closed door, at the hospital, clinic, or health center. The interviews, lasting an average of 45 minutes, were conducted in both Spanish and English and touched upon details of each abusive incident (for the abused women), harassment and stalking, social support network, help-seeking and interventions, household composition, mental and physical health, pregnancy, and firearm availability. The interviewer and each abused woman worked together to complete a 12-month retrospective "calendar history," highlighting key events and each violent incident that had happened in the woman's life during the past year. The data instrument was a set of blank calendars printed with one or two months per page. First, the woman was asked to place holidays and important life events on the calendar (e.g., having a baby, changing jobs, or moving). The woman and the interviewer also placed on the calendar each violent incident at the specific day or closest approximate day of occurrence. (If a woman told an interviewer about a violent incident that was not committed by an intimate partner, the incident was recorded in the event calendar dataset.) If a woman had been abused by more than one intimate partner in the previous year, interviewers recorded each separate incident on the calendar. Each woman received ten dollars at the initial interview as a thank-you for her participation in the study. Data from the initial interview sections comprise Parts 1-8. To collect prospective data on each of the 497 women who interviewed as AW, each woman was asked, at the end of the initial interview, for her consent to be reinterviewed in a series of follow-up interviews. If a woman consented, she was asked to provide one or more contacts where she might be reached. Researchers conducted at least one follow-up interview with approximately 323 of the 497 abused women during 1998 and 1999, via personal and telephone interviews. Each respondent was given 20 dollars for each follow-up interview as a thank-you for her continued participation. The follow-up interview schedule was similar to the initial interview. In addition to the questionnaire, women who had experienced any violence at the hand of an intimate partner since the initial interview completed a follow-up calendar history, covering the period since the initial interview. At the second follow-up interview, women who had experienced any violence completed a follow-up calendar history for the period since the first follow-up interview. In homicides in which a woman was the homicide offender, attempts were made to contact and interview her. Every intimate homicide that occurred in Chicago in 1995 or 1996 involving a woman over the age of 17 was included, regardless of whether further investigation determined the homicide to be justified. This "lethal" sample, all such homicides that took place in 1995 or 1996, was developed from two sources, HOMICIDES IN CHICAGO, 1965-1995 (ICPSR 6399) and the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office. The lethal sample contained 87 homicides, including 57 women victim cases, 28 women offender cases, and two same-sex cases. Additional data for the lethal sample were collected using official records from the Chicago Police Department Murder Analysis Reports, Cook County Criminal Court records, and newspaper articles from the Chicago Tribune archive, and the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Defender microfiche archives (Parts 13-15). Researchers wanted to locate individuals who could serve as knowledgeable and credible proxy respondents about the relationship between the victim and the offender in the year prior to the homicide. They began with the names and addresses of relatives who had identified the body provided from the Medical Examiner files, and the names of witnesses provided by the Cook County Criminal Court records, and used three primary strategies to develop the proxy contacts. First, researchers contacted potential proxies by phone using numbers listed in the case files, current telephone books, the HAYNES CRISS-CROSS DIRECTORY at the Harold Washington Public Library, and Internet directories. Next, they mailed letters to family members introducing the study and inviting participation as potential proxies. Third, they made field visits to the homicide sites, particularly to neighbors of the couple who might provide potential proxy contact information. Researchers were able to locate and interview at least one proxy respondent for all but 11 of the 87 homicide cases. It took as many as three proxy interviews (conducted face-to-face and via telephone) to compile the information necessary to complete a case. Researchers were able to obtain permission from the Illinois Department of Corrections to interview women homicide offenders still in prison when data collection began. Each of the proxy respondents completed, as far as possible, the same questionnaire used for the 705 women sampled in the clinic/hospital settings.

Sample View help for Sample

Convenience and random sampling.

Universe View help for Universe

Parts 1-7: Non-abused and abused women living in Chicago, IL. Parts 8-12: Abused women living in Chicago, IL. Parts 13-15: Intimate partner homicide cases in Chicago, IL, in 1995-1996.

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

Parts 1-12 comprise data from the clinic/hospital sample and contain a unique identifier variable that allows users to link each respondent across files. Part 1 includes demographic variables describing each woman, such as age, race and ethnicity, level of education, employment status, screening status (AW or NAW), birthplace, and marital status. It also includes information (relationship type and length) on the woman's intimate partner, or if there was more than one, the partner the woman felt "closest to." Variables in Part 2 describe the woman's living arrangements at the initial interview and the previous year, including whether she was homeless or living in a treatment center or shelter, the number of people living in the household, the number of the woman's children living in and outside the household, whether the children were the woman's birth, adopted, or foster children, the relationship, age, and gender of up to ten children (the woman's and others) living in and outside the household, and the age, gender, and relationship of up to ten adults living in the household. Any changes to the household (e.g., someone going to jail or a baby being born) and the dates of each change are included as well. Variables in Part 3 deal with the respondent's physical and mental health, including general well-being, type and duration of any physical or emotional limiting condition, amount of bodily pain experienced, pregnancy and pregnancy outcome in the past year, alcohol or drug use and treatment, a four-item Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) scale of depression (Hays et al., 1995, Stewart et al., 1988), a scale of the strength of the woman's social support network (acceptance and support, knowledge of and access to resources, and tangible help in emergencies), and measures of other resources, such as personal and household incomes. Variables in Part 4 provide information on the number and type of guns found in the woman's home, Scales of Power and Control (Johnson, 1996) or Stalking and Harassment (Sheridan, 1992) by any intimate partner in the past year, specific types of physical violence or violent threat she might have experienced by any intimate partner in the past year (using the CTS as modified by Johnson, 1996), and the PTSD Symptom Scale (Foa, et al., 1993) measuring Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder related to these incidents. Part 5 contains variables from a lengthy section of the interview that determined which intimate partner had been responsible for the incidents just mentioned (this may not be the partner described in Part 1). If more than one partner was responsible for any of the incidents, the woman was asked to choose one partner to talk about, identified as "Name." Variables in Part 5 record the woman's partner situation (e.g., whether the partner mentioned in Part 1 was the only abuser, how many partners and how many abusers were mentioned), and basic information (type and length of relationship) about each partner mentioned in addition to the "closest" partner discussed in Part 1. Finally, Part 5 includes a series of variables about Name (the chosen abusive partner, or the "closest" partner for NAW women), including Name's age, gender, and race or ethnicity, the length of the relationship between the woman and Name, the age difference between them, Name's employment status and education, living arrangements with Name, whether the woman had left or ended the relationship, tried to leave, or asked Name to leave or end the relationship in the past year, and if so her reasons, whether she or Name had returned to the relationship after it ended, and if so her reasons, her children with Name and where they were living in the past year, and whether she had children who were stepchildren to Name. Variables in Part 6 cover the woman's help-seeking and interventions in the past year. Women interviewed as NAW (who answered "no" to each of the violence or violence threat questions) were not asked these questions. Part 6 has detailed sets of questions about informal help-seeking (talking to someone about the violence), and about three kinds of formal help-seeking (contacting an agency or counselor, seeking medical help, and contacting the police). A summary variable counts the types of help mentioned. Information on each of these four types of help-seeking includes whether the woman had tried to seek that type of help, her reasons for doing so, what type of help she received, and whether it was helpful. For this public-use version of the data the narrative responses have been deleted, but the variables with coded responses still remain. Part 6 also includes general questions on interventions, such as jail time, probation, orders of protection, and types of counseling or treatment involving Name, the seriousness of incidents with Name (whether the woman felt her life was in danger, whether Name tried to force her to do something illegal), and coded summaries of the woman's responses to open-ended questions about what she needed but did not get from formal types of help, as well as her advice to other women in a similar situation. Variables in Part 7 include questions comprising the Campbell Danger Assessment (Campbell, 1993), such as whether Name used drugs or alcohol, tried to control the woman's daily activities, beat her while she was pregnant, or had ever choked or tried to strangle her. In addition, Part 7 includes questions about Name's violence outside the home, whether Name had ever been arrested, and if so, the type of charge(s), and whether the woman had had any other intimate partner who was violent toward her. Part 8 is provided to make analysis easier for the user. It pulls together all of the information about Name (the chosen abusing intimate partner, or for women who interviewed as NAW, the closest intimate partner). In addition, Part 8 includes a number of summary variables created for analysis. Variables in Part 8 include the type and length of relationship with Name, Name's age, gender, and racial/ethnic group, age disparity between the woman and Name, Name's education and occupation, living arrangements with Name, whether the woman left, or tried to leave, or ended the relationship with Name in the past year, and if so her reasons, whether she returned to the relationship after it ended, and if so her reasons, children with Name and where they were living, and her children who were Name's stepchildren. Part 9 includes information about the events women mentioned in the 12-month retrospective "calendar history," or in their response to interview narrative questions. Part 9 is an event-level file, with a unique identifier linking each woman to her set of events. Part 9 variables include a coded description of the event, the date of the event, and for events in which the date spanned a period of time, the beginning and ending dates. Violent incidents not committed by an intimate partner are included as events in Part 9. Part 10 contains information about each violent incident or threat of violence that the woman mentioned in the 12-month retrospective calendar history. Part 10 is an incident-level file, with a unique identifier linking each woman to her set of incidents. Variables in Part 10 include two aggregate summaries of the number and maximum severity of the incidents over the past year (see Part 11), as well as information on each incident. Variables include the severity code, date, whether a weapon was involved, whether there were other people present, and if so, who, if anyone else was injured, whether the woman suffered a miscarriage as a result of the incident, whether the woman was restrained or tied down in the incident, whether Name tried to choke or strangle her, whether the woman or Name were using drugs or alcohol at the time of the incident, and the number of days between the incident and the interview. Part 11 consists of aggregate person-level variables created from the incidents in Part 10. Variables for Part 11 record the total number of incidents during the year, the number of days before the initial interview that the most recent incident occurred, the maximum severity of any incident in the past year, the total number of incidents coded under each category of severity, the number of incidents involving a weapon, a gun, or a knife, the number of incidents resulting in miscarriage, the number of incidents in which the woman was restrained or tied down, the number of incidents in which other people, including children, were present, the number of incidents in which the woman had used alcohol or drugs, the number of incidents in which Name had used alcohol or drugs, and the number of incidents in which both had used alcohol or drugs. Part 12 is a person-level file containing variables summarizing violent incidents at the hands of any intimate partner (Name or any other intimate partner) the woman experienced on follow-up. Variables in Part 12 include the dates of each follow-up interview, the number of days from the initial interview to each follow-up and the total number of follow-up days, whether there had been any violent incidents since the last interview, the total number of violent incidents during the follow-up period, the maximum severity of the incidents at each follow-up and overall, and the status of the follow-up (including whether the woman consented or had died). Parts 13-15 contain data from official records sources and information supplied by proxies for victims of intimate partner homicides in 1995 and 1996 in Chicago. Part 13 contains information about the homicide incidents from the "lethal sample," along with outcomes of the court cases (if any) from the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts. Variables for Part 13 include the number of victims killed in the incident, the month and year of the incident, the gender, race, and age of both the victim and offender, who initiated the violence, the severity of any other violence immediately preceding the death, whether leaving the relationship triggered the final incident, whether either partner was invading the other's home at the time of the incident, whether jealousy or infidelity was an issue in the final incident, whether there was drug or alcohol use noted by witnesses, the predominant motive of the homicide, location of the homicide, relationship of victim to offender, type of weapon used, whether the offender committed suicide after the homicide, whether any criminal charges were filed, and the type of disposition and length of sentence for that charge. Parts 14 and 15 contain data collected using the proxy interview questionnaire (or the interview of the woman offender, if applicable). The questionnaire used for Part 14 was identical to the one used in the clinic sample, except for some extra questions about the homicide incident. The data include only those 76 cases for which at least one interview was conducted. Most variables in Part 14 pertain to the victim or the offender, regardless of gender (unless otherwise labeled). For ease of analysis, Part 15 includes the same 76 cases as Part 14, but the variables are organized from the woman's point of view, regardless of whether she was the victim or offender in the homicide (for the same-sex cases, Part 15 is from the woman victim's point of view). Parts 14 and 15 can be linked by ID number. However, Part 14 includes five sets of variables that were asked only from the woman's perspective in the original questionnaire: household composition, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), social support network, personal income (as opposed to household income), and help-seeking and intervention. To avoid redundancy, these variables appear only in Part 14. Other variables in Part 14 cover information about the person(s) interviewed, the victim's and offender's age, sex, race/ethnicity, birthplace, employment status at time of death, and level of education, a scale of the victim's and offender's severity of physical abuse in the year prior to the death, the length of the relationship between victim and offender, the number of children belonging to each partner, whether either partner tried to leave and/or asked the other to stay away, the reasons why each partner tried to leave, the longest amount of time each partner stayed away, whether either or both partners returned to the relationship before the death, any known physical or emotional problems sustained by the victim or offender, including the MOS scale of depression, drug and alcohol use of the victim and offender, number and type of guns in the household of the victim and offender, Scales of Power and Control (Johnson, 1996) or Stalking and Harassment (Sheridan, 1992) by either intimate partner in the year prior to the death, a modified version of the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) (Johnson, 1996) measuring the type of physical violence experienced by either intimate partner, and the Campbell Danger Assessment for the victim and offender. In addition, Part 14 contains a number of summary variables about the fatal incident, most of which are also in Part 13. These include questions related to the circumstances of the incident, time, place, witnesses, who had initiated the violence, outcome for the offender (e.g., suicide or other death, arrest, sentence, etc.), and outcome for children and others who witnessed the violence or found the body. Part 15 contains the same data as Part 14, except that each variable is presented from the woman's point of view, regardless of whether she was the victim or offender in the homicide. Additional summary variables were added regarding the overall nature of any prior physical abuse in the relationship, as well as the overall pattern of leaving and returning to the relationship in the year prior to the death.

Response Rates View help for Response Rates

The response rate for Part 12 (Summary of Abuse on Follow-up Data) was 65 percent. Response rates for Parts 1-11 and Parts 13-15 are not applicable.

Presence of Common Scales View help for Presence of Common Scales

Several Likert-type scales were used as well as the Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) scale of depression (Hays et al., 1995, Stewart et al., 1988), Scales of Power and Control (Johnson, 1996) and Stalking and Harassment (Sheridan, 1992), a modified version of the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) (Johnson, 1996), the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Symptom Scale (Foa et al., 1993), and the Campbell Danger Assessment (Campbell, 1993).

Original Release Date View help for Original Release Date

2000-10-18

Version History View help for Version History