Thomas R. Frieden, MD, MPH, Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Thomas R. Frieden, MD, MPH, Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Linda C. Degutis, DrPH, MSN, Director, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control

Howard R. Spivak, MD, Director, Division of Violence Prevention

Senator Patty Murray (WA)

Senator Maria Cantwell (WA)

Sen. Patrick Leahy (VT)

Sen. Mike Crapo (ID)

Rep. Jim McDermott (WA-7)

Vice President Joseph Biden

Dear Dr. Frieden,

I am writing to express my dismay at the Centers for Disease Control’s misrepresentation of the findings of the CDC co-funded National Violence Against Women survey. The CDC states in Understanding Intimate Partner Violence: Fact Sheet 2011 that “Each year, women experience about 4.8 million intimate partner related physical assaults and rapes. Men are the victims of about 2.9 million intimate partner related physical assaults.1” The cite is to the NVAW survey. But this is not even remotely accurate. The NVAW survey found that “About 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the United States (exhibit 9).” (emphasis added). CDC does not explain how 1.5 million women (including physical violence and rapes) became 4.8 million.

This will be featured in an academic journal article I am writing, on your recent National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) and the perils of advocacy research.

The CDC’s misrepresentation of this data affects public policy and public education programs, including those co-funded by the Centers for Disease Control. For example, the CDC VetoViolence training course and Web site presents this completely erroneous fact. “Each year, about 1500 people die from intimate partner violence. Another 4.8 million women and 2.9 million men are victims of intimate partner-related assaults.” (The basics/understanding violence)

This misrepresentation of the NVAW survey is part of a pattern at the Centers for Disease Control of denying or minimizing intimate partner violence against men. According to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (hereinafter NISVS) released in December, 2011, within the last 12 months an estimated 5,365,000 men and 4,741,000 women were victims of intimate partner physical violence. The Executive Summary stresses the less-accurate lifetime prevalence, and in the section on violence 12 months prior to the survey it mentions rape, other sexual violence, stalking and a composite of rape/physical violence/stalking, but not the information that shows that more men than women are victims of physical violence. The NISVS Fact Sheet states “with IPV alone affecting more than 12 million people each year. Women are disproportionately impacted.” It doesn’t mention that more men than women are victims of IPV.

The public and policy-makers will not read the 112-page NISVS report. Instead, they will rely on the CDC’s Executive Summary and Frequently Asked Questions . Here is what the FAQ says about intimate partner violence:

Q: Does this report show how both males and females experience violence?
Yes, although women are frequently at greater risk of victimization and our findings are reported separately for females and males. For example, the results indicate that nearly 1 in 5 women (18%) and 1 in 71 men (1%) in the United States have been raped at some time in their lives and 1 in 2 women (45%) and 1 in 5 men (22%) have experienced sexual violence other than rape, including being made to penetrate someone else and unwanted sexual contact. One in 6 women (16%) and 1 in 19 men (5%) in the United States have experienced stalking victimization during their lifetime in which they felt very fearful or believed that they or someone close to them would be harmed or killed.

There is no mention that more men than women experienced physical violence in the past year.

In a similar vein, the Centers for Disease Control’s 2009 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) found that 10.3% of males and 9.3% of females had been victimized. The 2003 YRBS found that 8.9% of students (8.9% of males and 8.8% of females) reported PDV victimization during the 12 months preceding the survey. Yet your teen dating violence focus is on girls as victims.

What is disturbing is that the public and policy-makers look to the CDC for guidance, for example in the debate on renewal of the Violence Against Women Act. In 2005, the Federal government spent $835 million on domestic violence. $3 million went to programs to engaging men in preventing domestic violence, but none of this went to public education efforts or programs to help male victims. In fact, the U.S. Department of Justice specifically prohibited use of this domestic violence funding to research domestic violence against men. Policy-makers also use this information in making decisions on state-level funding of domestic violence programs, training for police, prosecutors and courts, and other public policy endeavors.

The Centers for Disease Control owes it to the public and the taxpayers to present full, fair and accurate information, not the misrepresentations and distortions like that found in your Understanding Intimate Partner Violence: Fact Sheet and VetoViolence training course.

Sincerely,

Bert H. Hoff, J.D.
Seattle and Online Faculty, University of Phoenix
(primary)
(secondary)
(206) 522-9701 (10 am - 9 pm Pacific)