Part 1 of 4

Native American women experience the highest rates of Intimate Partner Violence of any ethnic group in the United States. Knowledge of the prevalence of IPV in Native American communities is an important starting point to understand the pervasiveness and importance of domestic violence in American Indian communities.

This article, the first in a series of four on IPV against Native women, explores the prevalence of IPV among Native Americans from the national to tribe-specific level, focusing on Native American communities in the Southwest. Although numbers will vary from community to community, health care personnel and prominent community members must be aware of the high prevalence in order to adequately respond to the needs of Native American women. The rates of domestic violence will not begin to decrease until the problem is recognized so resources can be mobilized in response.

A review of statistical research on the prevalence of intimate partner violence in Native populations provides the justification for studying this problem. However, a literature review can prove difficult because many studies are based on small reservation samples and cannot be extrapolated to a general population. In addition, national surveys often do not include a sufficient representative sample of Native women to provide reliable numbers according to an article in a 2006 American Journal of Public Health. Each study notes differences in study design, the definition of IPV, and the demographic characteristics of the study population, which complicates comparison and analysis. Because of these issues, this article uses a variety of sources, from national to tribe-specific, to provide a statistical base for the importance of the study on IPV in Native populations.

The 1993 – 1998 National Violent Victimization and Race Survey found that the prevalence of IPV among Native Americans was 23.2/1,000, compared to a prevalence of 8.2/1,000 for white women and 11.2/1,000 for black women. More specific studies of Southwestern American Indian population present a range of results. One study in a 2005 edition of the American Journal of Public Health, which used tribal roles and a reservation-based sample for participants, found that 28.9 percent of women from the Southwestern tribe had been physically abused by a spouse or partner.

In a study found in a 1998 electronic edition of Cultural Diversity and Mental Health, with a sample including all people eligible for enrollment in a Southwestern tribe, 91 percent of respondents reported being victims of physical or verbal IPV, and 32 percent reported a recent assault.

Another study, in a 2006 edition of the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, looked at violent crime rates in six tribes, three of which were in the Southwest, and included any physical assault for male and female members. The rates of violent crime for the three tribes were 27 percent, 64 percent and 65 percent. Of female victims, 80 percent of the attacks were by an intimate partner.

Studies based in New Mexico provide specific rates of IPV. In one study, recorded in a 1998 edition of the American Journal of Public Health of those seeking health care in an IHS clinic on the Navajo reservation – which straddles northwestern New Mexico and northeastern Arizona – 52.5 percent of female respondents reported at least one incident of domestic violence by a male partner. A 1996 study in Annals of Emergency Medicine analyzing domestic violence homicides in New Mexico found that, although only 10.5 percent of the population is Native American, 25 percent of domestic violence homicide victims were Native American. The rate of domestic violence homicide was 4.9/100,000 for Native American women as compared to 1.8/100,000 for white women and 1.7/100,000 for Hispanic women.

Nationally, Native Americans experience violent crime, including IPV, at a rate that is higher than any other ethnic group according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2001. In the Southwest, studies show that IPV is a serious problem among Native American communities, and those with racial comparisons establish the higher risk in Native American communities. The studies mentioned in this article, and many more besides, have unequivocally concluded that Native American women experience an unacceptably high level of domestic violence. But why is this so? The reason behind increased levels of violence against Native Americans can be explained by the history of colonization, cultural and societal changes, and contemporary challenges and institutions in Native America. These topics will be explored in the next newsletter article.

In the next issue “Causes of high levels of domestic violence against Native American women.”

Kathryn Tucker is a junior at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., studying international health with a pre-med concentration. During the summer of 2009, she received the Lisa J. Raines/AAP Undergraduate Research Grant to study causes of and responses to domestic violence against Native Americans in New Mexico. This series of four articles on domestic violence is based on research that will be published in Mentis Vitae, a Georgetown undergraduate research journal. Kathryn also created a documentary entitled “Women are Sacred: The Struggle to Stop Domestic Violence Against Native Americans in New Mexico” as part of this project. Kathryn lives in Tijeras, N.M.

Research funded by the Lisa J. Raines/AAP Undergraduate Research Grant
Research approved by the Georgetown University IRB