As I write this, a woman elsewhere is being beaten, verbally abused, perhaps murdered by an intimate partner. This is not a new phenomenon, yet a study just out from the Centers for Disease Control—on its National Violent Death Reporting System—brings a monster closer to home.
The deaths of 55 percent of women murdered in the United States between 2003 and 2014 were related to intimate partner violence (IPV). Just over 11 percent of these women had experienced violence in the month before the killing. And black women were three times as likely to be victims as white women. (American Indian/Alaska Native women weren’t far behind.)
It is difficult not to feel frustrated as researchers who have long worked to heal these victims, break cycles of violence, and end unnecessary suffering and death. To not say, “Here we go again.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: PATRICIA M. DAVIDSON
Patricia M. Davidson, PhD, MEd, RN, is dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and a fellow of the Australian College of Nursing, the American Heart Association, the Preventive Cardiovascular Nurses Association, and the American Academy of Nursing. She is counsel general of the International Council on Women’s Health Issues and actively involved in the international activities of Sigma Theta Tau International. Follow her on Twitter (@nursingdean).