CDC's family and intimate violence prevention team: basing programs on science

Women are frequent targets of both physical and sexual assault not only by strangers, but by partners and acquaintances as well. The public health approach to violence, including violence against women, focuses on prevention rather than treatment and is science based. Its steps include defining the problem, identifying causes, developing and testing interventions, and then implementing interventions and measuring their effectiveness. The Family and Intimate Violence Prevention Team in the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention uses the public health approach to address the prevention of violence against women. We describe here some of the team's major activities and show how these activities will add to the scientific database on violence against women.