Violence, by the numbers

It's troubling that nearly 10 percent of the women treated in the emergency room of LDS Hospital reported that they had been the victim of domestic abuse in the past year. Some 40 percent of women surveyed said they had been abused some time during their lifetime.

And perhaps even more disturbing was the finding that 40 percent of the women who reported they had been the victims of domestic violence some time in the past year told researchers they had also considered killing themselves in that year.

The research quantifies what many advocates for battered women and children have believed to be true. As Jennifer Mackenzie, chief program officer for the Salt Lake YWCA, told the Deseret Morning News, "As much as we don't like to admit it, domestic violence is still a very real problem in Utah. It's happening to our family members, to our friends and to the people we sit next to in our churches."

According to the YMCA, Utah ranks 16th in the nation in domestic homicides. Sixty-five percent of the women murdered in Utah are victims of domestic violence.

The new research, published in this month's issue of "Utah Health: An Annual Review," a journal of the Utah State Department of Health, should give new impetus to this significant problem, which cuts across all education, income, ethnicity and age levels. We hope this research will lead to more widespread domestic-abuse screening to help identify victims and connect them with appropriate resources.

This research should also be a wake-up call to policymakers who oversee budgets for health, law enforcement, counseling and protection services. There must be adequate resources to identify these victims and provide resources to help them and their abusers break the cycles of abuse or, if necessary, help victims escape violent homes.

Researchers, who questioned 500 consecutive women who came through LDS Hospital's doors in March 2001, believe the next step in addressing domestic violence should be creating screening protocols to enable health-care providers to identify victims and get them help.

Triage nurses, for instances, could include questions about domestic abuse in their routine patient interviews.

When research tells us that the incidence of domestic violence in Utah rivals that of much larger urban centers such as Los Angeles, it's time for policymakers to give greater attention to this community issue through enhanced funding of programs and improved networking among existing providers. Front-line caregivers in the medical community need to know what questions to ask to ascertain if a woman is a victim of domestic violence and where to refer her for help.