HEA034 Domestic violence assistance leading to avoided homicides

Number of participants: Reported by program.

Percentage of participants getting assistance solely because of the program: [79%, female]. This is based on reporting that 21% of female victims and 6% of male victims disclosed their victimization to a doctor or nurse at some point in their lifetime (Black et al, 2010).

Q: Impact of the program on the likelihood of death: [0.26]. This is the number of impacted participants estimated using the formula:

In this formula, ES [0.348] is the percentage of abused women saved from death due to the program. We use the effect size of interventions on reducing severe physical abuse in women leaving a shelter at 24 months to proxy the effectiveness of the program on preventing death. This effect size is an odds ratio reported by Rivas et al (2015). The base percentage [0.001] is the percent of women suffering from abuse who would be killed. This is an estimate for the homicide rate of women who are abused from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (2003). However, for women who leave their homes because they are afraid and seek help from our grantee, the odds of death are probably much higher because prior interpersonal violence increases the risk of domestic homicide 15-fold (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2003). We leave the increase in the risk aside and conservatively use the one-tenth of one percent estimate.

$ value per life saved: We estimate the value of a life based on a [$50,000] QALY. This value varies by the age and expected years of life of each participant. Thus, we compute the total benefits of a program based on specific program data on participants’ age and discount the annual value to present value using Constellation’s standard discounting method.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. (2003). Costs of intimate partner violence against women in the United States. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved from: https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pub/IPV_cost.html.

McFarlane, J., Malecha, A., Watson, K., Gist, J., Batten, E., Hall, I. & Smith, S. (2005). Intimate partner sexual assault against women: Frequency, health consequences, and treatment outcomes. Obstetrics and Gynecology, 105(1), 99-108.

Rivas, C., Ramsay, J., Sadowski, L., Davidson, L. L., Dunne, D., Eldridge, S., Feder, G. (2015). I. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (12).