Professor Jacquelyn Campbell, PhD, RN, FAAN, presented on violence against women at the Sigma Theta Tau International (Sigma) event Precursors to Violence: Identifying, De-escalating, and Reducing Women’s Risks. The event was a parallel meeting to the 63rd Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, one of the most influential global conferences to furthering women’s rights.
Campbell, Anna D. Wolf Chair, showcased the Danger Assessment, an instrument she developed to help abused women accurately determine their risk of being killed or seriously injured by an abusive current or former intimate partner. (The session’s key goals were to highlight nursing science related to violence and teach attendees the risk factors used to statistically determine a woman’s risk level.)
“Domestic violence is a major cause of mortality for women, and we must continue to educate around warning signs like threats to kill, offender gun ownership, and highly controlling behavior, and what women need to do in those situations,” says Campbell.
For more than 30 years, Campbell has studied the effects of violence on health. She has published more than 250 articles and seven books. Her Danger Assessment has trained health care professionals, domestic violence advocates, and law enforcement to assess risk of lethal or near lethal violence and develop interventions. The Danger Assessment has been adapted to several cultural groups and is incorporated into the myPlan app, developed by Professor and Independence Chair in Nursing Education Nancy Glass to help victims create a personalized plan for safety.