Partner notification and the threat of domestic violence against women with HIV infection.

THE Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that women constitute the fastestgrowing group of people with AIDS in the United States. Women now represent 13 percent of reported cases. Approximately 80,000 women of childbearing age are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and as many as 14,000 women will have been given a diagnosis of AIDS by the end of 1993. Over 70 percent of infected women are from minority groups: 51 percent are black, and almost 20 percent are Hispanic. Intravenous drug use was the mode of transmission in over 50 percent of the cases, and sexual contact with an HIV -infected partner in 30 percent. The general assumption is that it makes good sense,