October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month and Sacred Heart Center staff will be busy with activities and events to raise awareness of domestic violence throughout the month. Although public awareness and community education is an integral and ongoing component of our work to change attitudes and bring awareness to domestic and sexual violence, Domestic Violence Awareness Month provides a great opportunity to engage the community in working toward ending domestic violence.

Here are a few startling statistics that show why we need to be concerned about domestic violence and why we need to come together as a community to address it:

• 39% of American Indian and Alaska Native women will be subjected to violence by an intimate partner in their lifetimes, compared to 29% of African American women, 27% of White women, 21% of Hispanic women, and 10% of Asian women.
  
  Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (February 8, 2008). Adverse health conditions and health risk behaviors associated with intimate partner violence - United States, 2005. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) 57(05): 113-117.
  www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5705a1.htm#tab1

• 17% of American Indian and Alaska Native women reported being stalked during their lifetimes, compared to 8% of White women, 7% of African American women, and 5% of Asian women.
  
  Source: Bachman, R., Zaykowski, H., Kallmyer, R., Poteyeva, M., and Lanier, C. (2008). Violence against American Indian and Alaska Native women and the criminal justice response: What is known.
  Unpublished grant report to the US Department of Justice.
  https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/223691.pdf

• Health Consequences Men and women who experienced physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime were more likely to report frequent headaches, chronic pain, difficulty with sleeping, activity limitations, poor physical health and poor mental health than people who did not experience these forms of violence. Women who had experienced these forms of violence were also more likely to report having asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, and diabetes than women who did not experience these forms of violence.
  
  Source: Black, M.C., Basile, K.C., Breiding, M.J., Smith, S.G., Walters, M.L., Merrick, M.T., Chen, J., & Stevens, M.R. (2011). The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS): 2010 Summary Report. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/nisvs_executive_summary-a.pdf