To disrupt and displace: placing domestic violence on the public health agenda

In 1996, in Geneva, the World Health Assembly declared the violence as a major and growing public health problem. Others have gone further in describing (sexual) violence against women as a weapon of terror. In the local community of Hamilton, Ontario Canada (population approximately 500,000), domestic violence represents 25% of the workload of the local police service. The literature has shown that violence in general, and domestic violence in particular, presents tremendous social and health impacts for individuals and communities. In this local community, however, an evaluation of a recently piloted cutting edge domestic violence response system highlights how difficult it is to place domestic violence on the policy and/or public health agendas. Qualitative interviews with 23 key stakeholders were undertaken to assess their views on the success of the program. While overall findings indicate that the success of this brief (11 month) pilot project was limited, important insights emerged around responding to the domestic violence issue, at the community level.