Descriptive Study Of Emergency Medical Services Attended Child Abuse And Intimate Partner Violence Incidents

Abstract

Intimate partner violence and child abuse and neglect are significant public health issues that are often related. Surveillance systems that monitor these events and the health issue related to these behaviors vary. These systems include surveys, court records, and incident reports. There are pros and cons to each of these systems and given the complex nature of these incidents, a combination of systems is most effective. This study examined a new system to identify intimate partner violence and child abuse and neglect incidents to determine effectiveness and describe the details of incidents occurring in Hawai‘i. The data source was proven to be quite effective with some gaps such as missing information. Overall, incident details such as sex of patient, perpetrator information, and incident/dispatch location were consistent with existing data reporting prevalence in Hawai‘i.