Nhung Nguyen

(Short comments on Tjaden & Thoennes (2000), The National Violence Against Women Survey-NVAWS)

The reports aim at examining the prevalence of (1) Physical assault they experienced as children by adult caretakers, (2) Physical assault they experienced as adults by any type of assailant, and (3) Forcible rape and stalking they experienced at any time in their life by any type of perpetrators. The research also includes a wider/broader research population and samples in comparison to Ms. Koss’ research (1987). This study also takes races and ethnicities into consideration more deeply than the previous one.

Interestingly, even though the current research obtains on a wider population, the prevalence of violence against women is not less serious. Koss’ studies indicate that about 25% of female college students experience raped or attempted rape, while Tjaden & Thoennes found out that about 50% of women experience some form of physical assault in their childhood. Understandably, the term “physical assaults” is much wider than “rape or attempted rape.” Stalking was also explored in the latter research as another form of violence against women (and men).  However, the seriousness of violence again women is an issue that seems to have not been improved throughout the given period (1979 and 1995).

Aside from the limitation of being unable to capture non-telephone households, men and women living on the streets, or group facilities or institutions; the current study provides a more comprehensive and deeper understanding of violence against women and men in the US during such time. On the other hand, Koss’ research tried to capture the representation of the college student population in the US even though it still excluded students in the military institutions, the institutions with below 10000 students enrolled, and the institutions that did not allow the research to be taken, and the institution in the island territory of the US such as Hawaii or Puerto Rico. The sampling methods in both surveys were random and representative, reflecting the structure of the research populations in both studies.

However, both of the surveys have not take into consideration gender diversity facts. The LGBTQs community had not been included in either of the two research. It was understandable that in the meantime, those issues have not been brought to the social discourses.  I hope the NISVS surveys in 2011 and 2018 handled this research gap.

Read more at:

Black, Michele C., Kathleen C. Basile, Matthew J. Breiding, Sharon G. Smith, Mikel L. Walters, Melissa T. Merrick, Jieru Chen, & Mark R. Stevens. (2011, November). The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS): 2010 Summary Report. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (124 pages).   Available on our Blackboard site and at  http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf

D’Inverno, A.S., Smith, S.G., Zhang, X., Chen, J. (2019). The Impact of Intimate Partner Violence: A 2015 NISVS Research-in-Brief. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Available on Blackboard or at https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/NACJD/studies/37632/publications

Krebs, C., Lindquist, C., Berzofsky, M., Shook-Sa, B., Peterson, K., Planty, M., Langton, L., & Stroop, J. (2016). Campus Climate Survey Validation Study: Final Technical Report. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.  Available on Blackboard and at https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ccsvsftr.pdf

Smith, S.G., Zhang, X., Basile, K.C., Merrick, M.T., Wang, J., Kresnow, M., Chen, J. (2018, November). The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS): 2015 Data Brief – Updated Release. Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Available on our Blackboard site and at https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/2015data-brief508.pdf