Intimate partner violence (IPV), including violence in dating relationships (dating violence, DV) is a widespread and serious public health problem. Among U.S. female IPV survivors, 47.1% report their first abusive relationship occurred at college age (age 18-24). Similarly, in national surveys, adults respondents 18-24 years of age report the highest rate of stalking victimization, most commonly by a former intimate partner. Safety planning is the most widely used intervention to prevent and respond to DV/IPV, yet the vast majority of abused women never access safety planning services. Our challenge is to increase college women's access and use of safety planning, with the opportunity to consider their unique safety priorities and level of danger during and when ending an abusive relationship. In addition, while bystander interventions that train peers to safely intervene hav been shown to be effective in sexual assault prevention on campus, and college women in abusive relationships most frequently disclose DV/IPV to a friend, no similar interventions have been tested with friends for DV/IPV response on campuses. Therefore, the objective of the 5-year study is to evaluate the: 1) effectiveness of an interactive, personalized safety decision application (App), called iPlan, intervention in Maryland and Oregon with: 1) college women (age 18-24) who experience DV/IPV and 2) friends (age 18-24) of women experiencing DV/IPV. The iPlan App allows the user to enter information on: a) relationship health; b) safety priorities and c) severity of violence/danger in relationship. The App then uses the information to provide the user with a personalized safety plan with links to campus/local resources; and 2) dissemination of the iPlan App in partnership with the One Love Foundation, a national advocacy organization, in an expanded four states (Arizona, Maryland, Missouri, and Oregon) to determine the reach, adoption, implementation and maintenance of App use among university/college students. Our study will address the paucity of evidence that exists on how to disseminate effective safety interventions to prevent and respond to DV/IPV on large and diverse university/college campuses. Despite the significant evidence of negative health and social outcomes of DV/IPV across the lifespan, and the complex priorities that influence safety for college women and friends, little is known about what interventions are most effective and what dissemination approaches are best suited to prevent and respond to DV/IPV university/college campuses. The findings from the study will begin to address this paucity of evidence and assist in implementation of national DV/IPV safety interventions.
The study addresses National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) priorities to develop and test interventions to reduce disparities and improve the health of women and children through their lifespan. Research findings will inform the science for large-scale implementation of a technology advanced DV/IPV safety interventions for a high risk population, university/college students in a high risk setting, university/college campuses.
| Bloom, Tina; Gielen, Andrea; Glass, Nancy (2016) Developing an App for College Women in Abusive Same-Sex Relationships and Their Friends. J Homosex 63:855-74 |
| Glass, Nancy; Clough, Amber; Case, James et al. (2015) A safety app to respond to dating violence for college women and their friends: the MyPlan study randomized controlled trial protocol. BMC Public Health 15:871 |
| Alhusen, Jeanne L; Lucea, Marguerite B; Glass, Nancy (2010) Perceptions of and Experience With System Responses to Female Same-Sex Intimate Partner Violence. Partner Abuse 1:443-462 |
