Information Is Power in Effort to Prevent Violence.

Nearly 3,500 women are murdered in the United States each year, a third by a spouse, ex, or boyfriend.

The National Violence Against Women Survey suggests that approximately 2.1 million women are physically assaulted or raped yearly, with 1.5 million cases perpetrated by a current or former partner.

Actual data on cases could be a valuable tool for understanding the causes and identifying preventive actions. Unfortunately, state-by-state data are limited, and the question of whether these assaults are under- or over-reported has been debated by experts in criminal justice, women's studies and public health.

Officials from CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and National Center for Health Statistics, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and the National Institute of Justice met in 1998 to determine whether local data systems could be created to monitor and help officers respond to violence against women. Their recommendations for future monitoring are:

* Develop a uniform definition of what constitutes violence and abuse against women, and decide whether it should include psychological and emotional abuse, as well as physical.

* Encourage the use of several assessment tools, as well as collaboration among disciplines and agencies to share information.

* Develop ways to collect information on violence against women--using both national and local data from service providers, health care providers and criminal justice sources.

* Improve the accuracy and consistency of data collection by various groups.

* Ensure the confidentiality and safety of the victims and their information, as well as that of those who collect the data.

Some states have more experience with collaboration on domestic violence than others. Kentucky Representative Kathy Stein, a former domestic violence prosecutor in Fayette County has continued to try to "advocate on behalf of peace in Kentucky homes." With this in mind, Representatives Stein and Stephen Nunn sponsored a recently enacted law requiring domestic violence training courses for a broad number of health and other care professionals.

"Kentucky has had great success with multi- and interdisciplinary cooperation to combat the scourge of domestic violence," Stein says. "The sharing of information between various professions, agencies and institutions has contributed to expanded knowledge on how to aid victims and try to break the cycle of violence."