A number of studies were conducted on domestic violence when spouse abuse first became a public issue during the 1970s and 1980s. Since that time, however, there has been little government-funded statistical research on domestic abuse. The pioneering work done at the University of New Hampshire's Family Research Laboratory in Durham, New Hampshire, has become an authoritative source of information and insight about family violence.

Chief among the University of New Hampshire researchers who perform the landmark studies and in-depth work on intimate partner violence are Murray Straus, Richard Gelles, David Finkelhor, and Suzanne Steinmetz. Studies released by the Family Research Laboratory investigate all forms of domestic violence, many based on the National Family Violence Survey and the National Family Violence Resurvey. Murray A. Straus and Glenda Kaufman Kantor published data in 1994 in "Changes in Spouse Assault Rates from 1975 to 1992: A Comparison of Three National Surveys" (Durham, NH: The Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire, presented at the 13th World Congress of Sociology, July 19, 1994). Martha Smithey and Murray Straus published the report "Primary Prevention of Intimate Partner Violence" (Washington, DC: National Institute of Mental Health, July 2002). Murray A. Straus published "Prevalence of Violence against Dating Partners by Male and Female University Students Worldwide," in Violence against Women, vol. 10, July 2004.

International data about violence against women is collected by organizations such as the Statistical Commission and Economic Commission for Europe and the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute. Private sources on abuse include The Commonwealth Fund's 1998 Survey of Women's Health (Balti-more, MD: Commonwealth Fund, 1998) and Lori Heise's Violence against Women: The Hidden Health Burden (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1994).

The following sources also provide information about medical and health care utilization by abused women: The National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine report Confronting Chronic Neglect: The Education and Training of Health Professionals on Family Violence (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2001); the American Medical Association (AMA) report AMA Data on Violence Between Intimates (Chicago: American Medical Association Council on Scientific Affairs, December 2000); the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report Intimate Partner Violence Surveillance: Uniform Definitions and Recommended Data Elements by Linda E. Saltzman, Janet L. Fanslow, Pamela M. McMahon, and Gene A. Shelley (Atlanta: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, revised edition, 2002); and the report Violence against Women (Washington, DC: Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 2001).

National opinion poll research comes from Harris Interactive, Inc. (the Harris Poll) and from the 1999 Florida Department of Corrections' report Florida's Perspective on Domestic Violence. These provide insight into attitudes and beliefs about intimate partner violence.

Research cited in this publication was drawn from numerous books including Against Our Will, by Susan Brownmiller (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975); For Love of Country: Confronting Rape and Sexual Harassment in the Military, by Teri Spahr Nelson (Binghamton, NY: Haworth Maltreatment and Trauma Press, September 2002); Terrifying Love: Why Battered Women Kill and How Society Responds, by Lenore Walker (New York: Harper and Row, 1989); When Battered Women Kill, by Angela Browne (New York: The Free Press, 1987); Current Controversies on Family Violence, edited by Richard Gelles and Donileen Loseke (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1994); Legal Responses to Wife Assault, edited by Zoe Hilton (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993); Wife Rape, by Raquel Kennedy Bergen (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1996); The Batterer: A Psychological Profile, by Donald Dutton (New York: Basic Books, 1995); Women At Risk, by Evan Stark and Anne Flitcraft (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1996); Do Arrests and Restraining Orders Work?, edited by Eve Buzawa and Carl Buzawa (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1996); and Abused Men: The Hidden Side of Domestic Violence, by Philip W. Cook (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997).

The federal government's Bureau of Justice Statistics in Washington, D.C., provides information on domestic violence from the National Crime Victimization Surveys in Criminal Victimization, 2003 (2004); Criminal Victimization in the United States, 2002 Statistical Tables (2002); Homicide Trends in the United States (2002); Criminal Victimization 2001: Changes 2000–01 with Trends 1993–2001 (2001); Violence by Intimates, Findings from the National Violence against Women Survey (1999); Intimate Partner Violence and Age of Victim, 1993–99 (2001); Batterer Intervention: Program Approaches and Criminal Justice Strategies (1998); The Sexual Victimization of College Women (2000); Stalking and Domestic Violence: The Third Annual Report to Congress under the Violence against Women Act (1998); Women Offenders: A Special Report (2000); Extent, Nature and Consequences of Intimate Violence (2000); Special Report on Intimate Partner Violence (2000); Background Checks for Firearm Transfers, 2003 (2004); Enforcement of Protective Orders (2002); Drugs and Crime Facts (2003); and The Benefits and Limitations for Victims of Domestic Violence (1997).

The National Institute of Justice, administered by the Office of Justice Programs in the U.S. Department of Justice, reports on a variety of studies on domestic violence. Among them are Batterer Intervention Programs: Where Do We Go From Here? by Shelly Jackson, Lynette Feder, David R. Forde, Robert C. Davis, Christopher D. Maxwell, and Bruce G. Taylor (Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, NCJ 195079, June 2003); a special issue of the National Institute of Justice Journal dedicated to battering and murder, no. 250, November 2003; and Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence: Findings from the National Violence against Women Survey by Patricia Tjaden and Nancy Thoennes, (Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, 2000).

The U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, an agency of the federal government, provided data on trends and responses to sexual harassment in Sexual Harassment in the Federal Workplace (Washington, DC: U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, 1995).

Medical, psychological, sociological, epidemiological, and other types of journals publish useful articles on abuse. The journal articles cited in this publication were published in American Sociological Review, Archives of Internal Medicine, American Behavioral Scientist, British Journal of Criminology, Crime and Delinquency, Current Opinion in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Journal of General Internal Medicine, American Journal of Public Health, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Violence against Women, Violence and Victims, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Journal of the American Medical Association, Journal of Family Psychology, Journal of Family Practice, Journal of Emergency Nursing, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Maternal and Child Health Journal, The Psychology of Women Quarterly, and Journal of Interpersonal Violence.