Health advocacy in violence against women: an experience

• Published in: Gaceta sanitaria Vol. 19; no. 3; pp. 262 - 264
• Main Authors: Vives-Cases, Carmen, Alvarez-Dardet, Carlos, Colomer, Concha, Bertomeu, Angustias
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Spain 01.05.2005
• Subjects: Consumer Advocacy; Domestic Violence - prevention & control; Domestic Violence - statistics & numerical data; Female; Homicide - statistics & numerical data; Humans; Incidence; Information Dissemination; Internet; Population Surveillance; Seasons; Spain; Women; Spain
• ISSN: 0213-9111

The development of political responses to a problem needs for its construction as a social problem of a continuous epidemiological surveillance system available for the affected public and key decision makers. A women's health advocacy net based initiative was launched in November 2003. Every month the epidemic index of deaths (ratio of deaths in that month and median of deaths occurring the previous 5 years) due to Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is published in a section called "Violence Alert" of e-leusis.net a women's web page. The objective was giving visibility to information contributing to shape the problem. from a population perspective. The initiative was introduced at the beginning to journalists and every month a press release with the index results and a comment on it is circulated. More than half of the months studied (January 2003-December 2004) were epidemic (epidemic indexb > or = 1.25). "Violence alert" has received 2330 visits since then, an average of 65 visits per week. The page attracted media coverage from radio, TV and newspapers.