Role of victims' services in improving intimate partner violence screening by trained maternal and child health-care providers--Boston, Massachusetts, 1994-1995

From 1992 to 1996, approximately 1 million incidents of nonfatal intimate partner violence (IPV) occurred each year in the United States; 85% of victims were women. In 1989, pediatric research found a concurrence of victimization of mothers and their children and supported a recommendation that maternal and child health-care providers (HCPs) pursue training and advocate for increased access to services to promote the safety and well-being of mothers and their children. From 1992 to 1997, the Pediatric Family Violence Awareness Project (PFVAP), a training project for maternal and child HCPs, promoted prevention of and intervention for IPV in Massachusetts. In 1994, PFVAP conducted a pilot evaluation in two urban community health centers to determine whether HCPs trained to conduct IPV assessment would increase their screening rates of women at risk for IPV if an on-site referral service for victims was available. This report summarizes the results of the pilot project, which indicate that IPV screening rates did not increase after implementing on-site victim service.