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The Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) is a research and advocacy organization that seeks to integrate concern for gender equity and social justice into international health policy and practice. CHANGE staff can be reached by e-mail at change@genderhealth.org or at http://www.genderhealth.org.

In its most extreme form, violence kills women. Worldwide, an estimated 40% to over 70% of homicides of women are committed by intimate partners, often in the context of an abusive relationship (15, 177). By contrast, only a small percentage of men who are murdered are killed by their female partners, and in such cases the women often are defending themselves or retaliating against abusive men (418).

Nevertheless, injury is not the most common physical health outcome of gender-based abuse. Abuse may lead to any number of physical ailments including irritable bowel syndrome, gastrointestinal disorders, and various chronic pain syndromes. Studies consistently link such disorders to a history of physical or sexual abuse (108, 273, 457, 458). Abused women also have reduced physical functioning, more physical symptoms, and spend more days in bed than nonabused women (181, 273, 292, 383, 429, 458).

National Coalition Against Domestic Violence

In the US, as elsewhere, domestic violence is a major cause of injury to women. Over half of women who are abused by a partner are injured by this abuse as some point in their lives, some fatally.