Strangulation is a unique and particularly pernicious form of intimate partner violence. To increase the relatively little that is known about strangulation survivors, focus groups and interviews were conducted as part of a practice-research engagement with a domestic violence shelter. All of the participants had been strangled and, among them, almost all were strangled multiple times. The loss of consciousness was common. Participants associated "choking" with use of body parts and "strangling" with use of objects. Although some minimized the assault, most considered strangulation to be serious and reported a variety of medical conditions following the assault. Few sought medical care. Of those who did, few disclosed the assault, or were asked about strangulation, which commonly resulted in misdirected treatment. Implications for improving detection and treatment are discussed.

Strangulation is a unique and particularly gendered form of nonfatal intimate partner violence, affecting 10 times as many women as men. Medical research documents multiple negative health outcomes of such victimization, and in the past decade nearly 30 U.S. states have enacted laws making nonfatal strangulation a felony. We extended prior work by using grounded theory in a qualitative study to explore women's experiences of, thoughts about, and reactions to being strangled. Each of the 17 mostly well-educated and African American domestic violence shelter residents had been strangled at least once by an intimate partner; most had survived multiple strangulations. Despite other severe abuse and a high level of fear, all were shocked that their partner strangled them. Participants reported an intense sense of vulnerability when they recognized during the assault how easily they could be killed by their partner. Nonetheless, they seemed to think of strangulation, not as a failed murder attempt, but as a way to exert power. Efforts to extricate themselves from a ''choking'' largely failed and resistance resulted in an escalation of the violence. Moreover, strangulation is difficult to detect which, as participants observed, makes it especially useful to the abuser. The aftereffects permeated the relationship such that strangulation need not be repeated in order for her to be compliant and submissive, thus creating a context of coercive control.

IPV poses a serious threat to undergraduates' health and educational success. Findings warrant universal prevention and intervention.

Attitudes toward same-sex intimate relationships and toward intimate partner violence (IPV) are changing. Little research, however, has examined norms about IPV in same-sex relationships. Using a fractional factorial (experimental vignette) design, we conducted random-digit-dialed interviews in four languages with 3,679 community-residing adults. Multivariate analyses of responses to 14,734 vignettes suggest that IPV against gay male, lesbian, and heterosexual women is more likely than that against heterosexual men to be considered illegal, that it should be illegal, police called, and a stay-away order issued. Regardless of gender and sexual orientation, the type of abuse and whether a weapon was displayed are the strongest predictors of respondents' judgments about whether a behavior is illegal and merits a range of societal interventions.

Objective: As budgets tighten and demand grows, domestic violence (DV) programs are facing enormous pressure to demonstrate the impact of their work. A critical challenge to doing so is the absence of outcome measures that reflect DV programs’ missions and survivors’ goals for themselves. Academic-community partnerships are critical to developing such measures. The 2 aims of this study were to (a) develop and validate a measure—the Measure of Victim Empowerment Related to Safety (MOVERS)—that taps a key goal shared by DV program staff and program participants, and (b) draw on and model the benefits of community-based participatory research. Method: We evaluated the factor structure, reliability, and validity of MOVERS through a 2-stage process in which we developed a university-community partnership with 17 DV programs across the Northeast and administered a survey to 230 help-seeking survivors. Results: A scree plot and parallel analysis supported a 3-factor solution, with subscales assessing the extent to which a survivor (a) has developed a set of safety-related goals and a belief in her ability to accomplish them, (b) perceives that she has the support she needs to move toward safety, and (c) senses that her actions toward safety will not cause new problems in other domains. Each subscale demonstrated good internal reliability and construct validity. Conclusion: MOVERS provides a tool for assessing a key dimension of survivors’ experience and enables the evaluation of domestic violence program practices in ways that are consistent with core program and survivor goals.