Responding to gender-based violence in disasters: grappling with research methods to clear the way for planning.

In this issue of Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, Anastario et al1 bring to light a vulnerability that is often hidden. Using sequential cross-sectional randomized surveys of trailer parks in Mississippi that were home to individuals displaced by Hurricane Katrina, Anastario et al documented a quantitative increase in gender-based violence (GBV) among a population living in protracted displacement after disaster. Among the population surveyed, the crude rate of GBV increased from 4.6 to 16.3/100,000 per day after the hurricane and remained elevated at 10.1/100,000 per day in 2007. The majority of this sustained increase in GBV was due to intimate partner violence (IPV).