Research helps the survivors of the intimate partner’s violence to achieve support they need

As a lawyer of the victim of sexual and domestic violence, years ago, I supported women during invasive medical examinations, while they filed police reports and when they resorted to our crisis time line. I will never forget one of them.

There were many who told me that no one ever thought. They were the ones who trusted me with deeply held secrets. And many who thanked me for taking them to safe homes. I met a woman years later and hugged me and told her friend that I drove it through the worst chapter of her life.

Finally, I became a researcher, working for decades to better understand the scope and impact of gender -based violence and to discover effective ways to prevent this.

The drastic changes proposed to the federal financing of the research, including discounts on indirect costs, have put all these works in danger. It could return critical progress and leave women, in the United States and around the world.

Homicide is a main cause of death for women – most often in the hands of their intimate partners. It happens frequently in time and immediately after pregnancy. Almost half of the women in the United States have experienced a form of violence in the intimate partner.

“Women’s safety and women’s lives depend on our work.”

As a researcher, my team is based on the financing of NIH and the National Institute of Justice to study how survivors of violence can find faster help. We want to help us realize what works to help these women recover their lives on the road.

Our study participants literally entrust our lives, working with us while they remain at a significant risk for partners and even lethal abuse. Protecting personal safety and keeping the study data safe are of extremely important importance to ensure that their information does not fall into anyone’s hands can hurt. “Our indirect costs” for the fuel of critical systems behind the scene needed to implement this work safely to protect the identities of women at risk of violence. It covers everything, from the revision of the ethics to the data security characteristics and the technology that makes these systems safe, credible and possible.

Right here, in Baltimore, our Federal funded research has revealed how strong it can be for women to have safe housing after the violence of the partners. This study included women at extremely high levels of risk of homicide. Without having to worry about a safe place to live, we have found that these women were able to stabilize, build their economic independence and reduce financial addiction to harmful partners.

For too long, violence against women has been ignored and minimized. When we finally have promising interventions, we have a deep ethical obligation to use and study the results, so that we can learn how to best support these women and their families. The safety of women and the lives of women depend on our work.

Michele Decker He is Professor Bloomberg American health at the Bloomberg Public Health School in Bloomberg and founding director of the Johns Hopkins center for global women and gender equity. It leads research to the peak of gender equity and prevention and response to gender -based violence. She is also among the inaugural cohort of the University Provest’s Fellows for public involvementA group of scholars selected to participate in a year -year program designed to develop their public involvement skills on a series of platforms and audiences.