Salons FG
Injury Due to Intimate Partner Violence: A Spatial Analysis (304903)
*Sharon S. Caslin, Georgia Department of Juvenile JusticeLia Scott, Georgia State University
Keywords: Intimate Partner Violence, Spatial Analysis, Injury
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a significant health issue in the United States, as nearly 25% of all women and 10% of all men in the United States have reported being abused by an intimate partner. Injury due to IPV is a good indicator of later IPV severity, as a 2001 study of emergency room patients asserts that 20% of women murdered by an intimate partner had been seen in the previous year for injuries sustained by their killer. Further, researchers note that rates of violence vary by region. Given this, it is important to understand the geographical distribution of this outcome.
Bivariate spatial mapping in QGIS was used to assess the geographical distribution of injurious episodes of IPV across 38 states in the United States using the 2014 Uniform Crime Reporting Data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Each state was marked by the proportion of IPV that resulted injury to the victim.
Approximately 32% of states in the sample had high proportions (> 0.40) of injurious IPV.
The results show variability in states’ proportions of injurious IPV. Additional research will include a more sophisticated spatial regression with covariates.