CSN Monthly Bulletin

Intimate Partner Violence Among Teens

November 2005

This bulletin comes to you from the Children's Safety Network through CSN Discuss, an electronic forum for the discussion of child and adolescent injury and violence prevention and related issues.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

News and Developments
  1. Domestic Violence Prevention Enhancement and Leadership Through Alliances (DELTA) Webpage
  2. Love is Not Abuse Curriculum
Articles and Reports
  1. Report: Teen dating violence: A review of risk factors and prevention efforts.
  2. Article: Intimate partner violence injuries – Oklahoma, 2002.
  3. Article: Sexual intercourse precedes partner violence in adolescent romantic relationships.
  4. Article: Dating violence and sexually transmitted disease/HIV testing and diagnosis among adolescent females
  5. Article: Interparental conflict and adolescent dating relationships: Integrating cognitive, emotional and peer influences
  6. Article: Assessing the effects of the dating violence prevention program “Safe Dates” using random coefficient regression modeling
  7. Article: Longitudinal predictors of serious physical and sexual dating violence victimization during adolescence
Intimate Partner Violence Among Teens (IPVAT) Resource from CSN
  1. Technical Assistance

Availability

Copies of many items can be delivered to state Maternal and Child Health and state public health staff upon request. Articles available by e-mail are so indicated. Some other articles can be faxed or mailed. To request an article or other publication, e-mail jhudson@edc.org with the item name, delivery preference (e-mail, fax number, or mailing address). This service is restricted to state Maternal and Child Health and state public health staff. Restricted time and resources forbids us from delivering articles to others. URLs of publications that can be downloaded from the web are included in the bibliographic information.

News and Developments

  1. Domestic Violence Prevention Enhancement and Leadership Through Alliances (DELTA) Webpage

    2. The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control’s DELTA program funds intimate partner violence (IPV) prevention activities in 14 states. DELTA funds state-level domestic violence coalitions to provide prevention-focused training, technical assistance and funding to local Community Coordinated Responses, which are community-based efforts to prevent and respond to IPV. In October, which is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, CDC launched a DELTA program webpage, which includes a history of the program as well as links to information on each of the funded states.

    The webpage can be found at: http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/DELTA/default.htm

  2. Love is Not Abuse curriculum

    3. Liz Claiborne Inc., in partnership with the Education Development Center, recently began pilot testing a new curriculum designed to teach high school students about dating violence. The Love is Not Abuse curriculum is designed to teach 9th and 10th grade students in English and health classes about dating violence, The curriculum will help them challenge existing beliefs that support dating violence and encourage those who have been victimized to seek help. The curriculum is being tested for one academic year in 19 schools throughout the country.

    For more information about the curriculum and other aspects of Liz Claiborne’s work on preventing domestic violence, see the Love Is Not Abuse website a http://www.loveisnotabuse.com/

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Articles and Reports

  1. O’Keefe M. (2005).
    Teen dating violence: A review of risk factors and prevention efforts.
    Harrisburg, PA: National Resource Center on Domestic Violence.

    This report summarizes the latest research on the risk factors for teen dating violence victimization and perpetration and information on promising prevention and intervention strategies. Risk factors examined in this review include demographic characteristics, personality variables, prior exposure to violence in intimate relationships, attitudes regarding violence, peer influence, and other behaviors, including alcohol and drug use. The report also summarizes evaluation studies of several teen dating violence prevention programs, recommends directions for future research on teen dating violence and discusses the policy implications or current research.

    Teen Dating Violence is available online at: http://www.vawnet.org/DomesticViolence/Research/VAWnetDocs/AR_TeenDatingViolence.php

  2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
    Intimate partner violence injuries: Oklahoma, 2002.
    Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 2005 Oct 21;54(41):1041-45.

    Researchers and public health practitioners in Oklahoma analyzed data from emergency department (ED) medical records and the Oklahoma Women’s Health Survey (OWHS) in order to determine the magnitude of intimate partner violence (IPV) in Oklahoma. Data on IPV-related injuries reported in these records revealed that, in 2002, 16 percent of all assaults presenting in Oklahoma EDs were IPV-related and 35 percent of all assault-related injuries to women were due to IPV. The highest rates of IPV-related injuries were sustained by black females and by women 25-34 years of age. 5.9 of women between 18 and 44 years of age included in the OWHS sustained an IPV-related injury between 2000-2002.

    This article is available at: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5441a2.htm

  3. Kaestle CE, Halpern CT.
    Sexual intercourse precedes partner violence in adolescent romantic relationships.
    Journal of Adolescent Health. 2005 May;36(5):386-92.

    This study attempted to determine whether sexual intercourse preceded violence in an adolescent dating relationship. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, the authors determined that violence victimization was significantly associated with sexual intercourse with a dating partner and that sexual intercourse preceded the initiation of violence. This was true for both male and female victims.

    Availability:

    email or hard copy

  4. Decker MR, Silverman JG and Raj A.
    Dating violence and sexually transmitted disease/HIV testing and diagnosis among adolescent females.
    Pediatrics. 2005 Aug;116(2): e272-6.

    This study examined the association between dating violence victimization and STD/HIV testing and diagnosis among a representative sample of adolescent girls. Researchers analyzed Youth Risk Behavior Survey data from Massachusetts to determine the association between these two conditions. The researchers found that approximately one-third of the sexually-active girls in the study reported having experienced dating violence and one third of the surveyed girls reported being tested for an STD or HIV. Girls who had experienced dating violence – either physical or sexual – were significantly more likely to have been tested for an STD and HIV than girls who had not been victimized. These girls were also significantly more likely to have been diagnosed with these conditions than girls who had not experienced dating violence. The survey was not able to reveal whether dating violence preceded STD/HIV testing or diagnosis.

    Availability:

    email or hard copy

  5. Kinsfogel KM, Grych JH.
    Interparental conflict and adolescent dating relationships: Integrating cognitive, emotional and peer influences.
    Journal of Family Psychology. 2004 Sep;18(3):505-15.

    The study assessed the association between dating violence perpetration and experience of interparental conflict among a sample of approximately 400 high-school students. They found that, among boys, witnessing interparental conflict appeared to increase verbal and physical aggression toward a romantic partner. This association did not hold for girls in the study. The authors found that interparental conflict was significantly correlated with boys’ “attitudes about the justifiability of aggression, anger regulation, and perceptions of the occurrence of abuse in their peers’ dating relationships,” which predicted their likelihood of perpetrating violence in their own dating relationships. The authors also discuss the implications of these findings for dating violence prevention programs.

    Availability:

    email or hard copy

  6. Foshee VA, Bauman KE, Ennett ST, Suchindran C, Benefield T, Linder GF.
    Assessing the effects of the dating violence prevention program “Safe Dates” using random coefficient regression modeling.
    Prevention Science. 2005 Jul 27;6.

    The Safe Dates program, developed by researchers at the University of North Carolina in the mid-1990s, is a particularly well-studied teen dating violence prevention program. UNC researchers first implemented the intervention in 1994. They followed the 8th and 9th grade students who received that intervention for several years, collecting four waves of information on their later experiences of dating violence perpetration and victimization and comparing them to the experiences of comparable students who did not receive the intervention. This study describes the results of this data collection.

    The researchers found that the teens who received the Safe Dates intervention were significantly less likely to perpetrate psychological, moderate physical and sexual dating violence than comparable students who did not receive the intervention. Students who received the intervention were also significantly less likely to experience moderate physical violence victimization. Safe Dates also had a significant effect on severe physical violence perpetration for students who did not engage in this activity prior to implementation of the Safe Dates program.

    Availability:

    email or hard copy

  7. Foshee VA, Benefield TS, Ennett ST, Bauman KE, Suchindran C.
    Longitudinal predictors of serious physical and sexual dating violence victimization during adolescence.
    Preventive Medicine. 2004 Nov;39(5):1007-16.

    This study assessed risk factors for serious physical and sexual violence victimization among adolescent boys and girls. The teenagers in the study were followed from 8th or 9th grade all the way through high school. The study found that boys who reported physical abuse from an adult, low self-esteem, and participation in a physical fight in 8th or 9th grade were much more likely to be victimized by serious physical dating violence by 12th grade than boys who did not report these experiences. For girls, serious physical violence victimization by 12th grade was predicted only by the girl’s experience of physical abuse from an adult. Sexual dating violence victimization among girls was predicted by having a friend who had been victimized by sexual violence and by depression in 8th or 9th grade.

    Non-victimized boys in the 8th or 9th grade had an approximately 1 in 5 chance of being victimized by serious physical dating violence by 12th grade; for girls, this number was approximately 1 in 6 for severe physical violence and 1 in 5 for sexual dating violence. However, for boys who had already been victimized by mild dating violence in 8th or 9th grade, the chance of being victimized by severe physical violence by 12th grade was greater than 1 in 3. For girls, this number was 1 in 2 for severe physical violence by 12th grade and approximately 1 in 3 for sexual violence.

    Availability:

    email or hard copy

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CSN Resources Around Intimate Partner Violence Among Teens

  1. Technical Assistance

    CSN staff is available to assist public health professionals in state health departments with their work around intimate partner violence among teens (IPVAT). CSN staff can assist with identifying evidence-based prevention resources, discussing strategies for how public health professionals can get involved with this work, and providing contextualized assistance based on the specific needs or situation of a particular state. Please contact Erin Lyons (elyons@edc.org) with your IPVAT questions.

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The next CSN Discuss Bulletin will focus on injuries in the home.

Please direct questions about this bulletin to Erin Lyons at:
Phone: 717-337-9970
Email: elyons@edc.org