Franks's social psychological model of oppressive situations and asymmetric role-taking offers a new way of understanding the predicaments faced by battered women. Unlike individualistic or single-factor explanations, the model suggests that women faced with a particular combination of situational pressures and relationship inequities are especially vulnerable to distressful emotions and self-esteem difficulties. Survey data from 66 battered women using domestic violence services and 80 nonbattered women were collected to test the major propositions of the model. Battered women's social situations were oppressive and characterized by powerlessness, social isolation, and economic dependency. Batterers were poor empathizers. Predictions about self-blame and identification with the aggressor were not confirmed. The practical value of this theoretical approach with its emphasis on enhancing women's power base and increasing men's interpersonal sensitivity is developed.

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Haiti's high maternal and infant mortality rates evidence an urgent need for implementation of evidence-based strategies. A potential cost-effective strategy to mitigate high maternal and infant mortality rates is group prenatal care, an innovative model that combines antenatal clinical assessment with pregnancy education. Despite research demonstrating the effectiveness of this model in high-resource settings, less is known about the challenges of implementing it in low-resource settings. The purpose of this article is to provide recommendations for overcoming challenges of implementing group prenatal care in low-resources communities globally. Challenges addressed include language, literacy, space, cultural appropriateness of intervention content, and sociopolitical climate. Using examples from work conducted in Haiti, this information can be used to assist practitioners and researchers with overcoming challenges of implementing models of group care in international low-resource communities.

Findings from this study suggest that differences exist in assault characteristics between black and white women. Use of substances, including alcohol, plays an important role in sexual violence in women and should be a focus of preventive intervention initiatives when conducting a forensic examination. Both coordinated responses and comprehensive, individualized care by specially trained providers are important in the emergency care of minority women who are victims of recent sexual violence.