Physician Focus, February 2009, Public Health Alert — Domestic Violence
In Massachusetts, domestic violence deaths were three times higher in 2007 than in 2005. Nationally, a 2003 Centers for Disease Control study estimated that each year domestic violence involving an intimate partner results in 1,200 deaths, 2 million injuries among women, and 600,000 injuries among men – at a cost of $8.5 billion annually including direct medical and mental health costs. In June of 2008, with the passage of the Violence and Intervention Bill, Massachusetts became the first state in the nation to require health care providers to link victims of violence to counseling, housing, legal and educational and other services.
What will be the effect of this new effort? How will victims benefit? What role does - can – the health care provider now play? And what other steps can be taken, by physicians, public officials, and lawmakers, to address this public health problem of domestic violence?
Guests: Elaine Alpert, M.D., Senior Public Health Fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital's Division of Global Health and Human Rights, Department of Emergency Medicine. Liza Sirota White, Education Manager, Jane Doe Inc.
Host: Barbara Herbert, M.D., Chair, Mass. Medical Society Committee on Violence Prevention and Intervention
Co-produced with Hopkinton Community Access Television, HCAM-TV, Hopkinton Mass.
Listen to the podcast (Length 17:15) (This will open your computer's default media player in a new window)
Filed under: Physician Focus
