CDC Updates Intimate Partner Violence Uniform Definitions and Recommended Data Elements for Improved Data Collection

CDC Updates Intimate Partner Violence Uniform Definitions and Recommended Data Elements for Improved Data Collection

CDC’s Injury Center has released Intimate Partner Violence Surveillance: Uniform Definitions and Recommended Data Elements, Version 2.0. This publication is designed to promote consistency in the use of terminology and data collection across organizations that work to prevent intimate partner violence (IPV).

IPV is a profound social and public health problem in the U.S., with broad affects for males and females across the lifespan.

Changes that impact data collection and IPV prevention have occurred since the original document was published 16 years ago. The updated document addresses those changes by adding stalking as an explicit form of IPV victimization, describing the use of technology to perpetrate stalking and noncontact forms of sexual violence (e.g. use of GPS for tracking, or sexually explicit text messages), and considering psychological aggression as a form of IPV, regardless of whether physical violence was experienced. (Psychological aggression, called “psychological abuse” in the first publication, was only included as a form of IPV if physical violence was also experienced in the same relationship.) Additional recommended data elements are also presented.

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• CDC’s updated definitions of intimate partner violence can help gather data, inform research, and guide prevention. Check them out. #VetoViolence http://go.usa.gov/3knYR.

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• Updated @CDCInjury definitions of intimate partner violence released. Use them to improve data, research, & prevention. go.usa.gov/3knYR.

Learn More

• Intimate Partner Violence Surveillance: Uniform Definitions and Recommended Data Elements, Version 2.0.
• CDC’s Intimate Partner Violence Web Pages
• Contact CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention at dvpinquiries@cdc.gov.