Collaborative research to reduce disparities for abused women and their children.

Phyllis Sharps, PhD, RN, CNE, FAAN, is a professor and chair, Department of Community Public Health Nursing, Johns Hopkins University, School of Nursing, Baltimore, MD. I ntimate partner violence (IPV) can occur against women or men and be perpetrated by women or men. However, the severity of IPV and its impact differs between men and women. Women are more likely than men to report on-going fear and/or having changed their behaviors to accommodate the violent partner. Further, IPV against women takes place in a context of on-going issues of gender inequity in our society. This inequity is evidenced by higher rates of poverty and lower wages for women compared with their male counterparts, even with similar education and experience. Gender inequity signi¢cantly impacts a woman’s ability to safely leave the abusive relationship and a man’s ability to abuse with limited consequence. Over the past three decades, there has been a dramatic transformation in the response to IPV across all sectors of society including the health care system. Important clinical and policy advances that address IPV have been implemented, but nurse scientists continue collaboratively to build the evidence to reduce disparities for abused women and their children and address the gender inequity that supports IPV. This In Focus series reports on three such e¡orts.