National data [1995 National Violence Against Women Survey] indicate that 22.1% of women and 7.4% of men experience Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) during their lifetimes and that 1.3% of women and 0.9% of men experience IPV annually.
IPV results in an estimated $4.1 billion each year in direct medical and mental health-care costs, including $159 million in emergency dept (ED) treatments.
IPV might constitute as much as 17% of all violence-related injuries treated in emergency departments.
Intimate partners included current and former marital and nonmarital partners, dating partners, and same-sex partners.
Males and females aged >15 years were included. Multiple ED visits for IPV injuries sustained during the same assault incident were counted once.
Rates were calculated using U.S. Census bridged-race population estimates for 2002 for persons aged >15 years. A total of 3,988 ED medical records for assaults from the sampled hospitals were reviewed. Of these, 648 (16%) were documented as IPV assaults.
Among females, 575 (35%) of all ED assault records reviewed were IPV-related, whereas 73 (3%) of ED assault records among males were IPV-related.
The rate of IPV injuries among black females was 2.8 times higher than the rate for American Indian/Alaska Native females & 4.7 times higher than the rate for white females.
The most frequently injured body regions were the head, neck, and face (48% of injuries), followed by the upper extremities (25%), chest and back (12%), lower extremities (10%), and abdomen/pelvic region (3%).
OWHS data further suggest that ED treatment for IPV injuries represents only about 10% of women injured by a partner each year.
For injury surveillance purposes, IPV injuries were defined as intentional injuries inflicted by an intimate partner.
Cases included only OK residents.
[http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/otheract/ice/matrix10.htm; MMWR Weekly 21Oct05 / 54(41);1041-1045 MMWReport, CDC, HHS]