Pubdate: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Copyright: 1999 San Jose Mercury News Contact: 750 Ridder Park Drive, San Jose, CA 95190 Fax: (408) 271-3792 Website: http://www.sjmercury.com/ Author: Julie Marquis, Los Angeles Times Note: This article also appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times BATTERING STUDY ZEROES IN ON ALCOHOL, JOBLESSNESS Men's alcohol abuse and shaky employment status rank among the most important precipitating factors in domestic violence against women, while ethnicity plays virtually no role at all, according to one of the most comprehensive studies to date of assailants and their victims. The nationwide research, led by the University of California-Los Angeles and the University of Southern California physicians and published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, also confirmed that women are at greatest risk of being assaulted by former partners, underscoring women's vulnerability after a breakup. Focus On Batterers The study is one of two in the journal to show that violence stems primarily from the characteristics of the mostly male assailants rather than those of the female victims. In the past, researchers have often focused on the victim's background, such as whether she had been raped as a child or was herself a substance abuser. ``I think we have to continue to support women who are battered, but we also have to shift our focus to the batterers,'' said Jeane Ann Grisso of the University of Pennsylvania, lead author of one of the studies that looked at women in a poor community in Philadelphia. In terms of social programs, ``the men have been ignored,'' Grisso said. Like the UCLA-USC group, the Philadelphia team also found that drug and alcohol abuse -- in this instance, cocaine use -- and pervasive economic insecurity were important contributors to assaults on women. Both sets of researchers said economic class, rather than ethnicity, was a key element. ``I don't think that violence is race-or ethnicity-motivated. It has to do with socioeconomic status,'' said Demetrios N. Kyriacou, lead author of the UCLA-USC study. ``Black women sustain much more violence because they are much poorer in general.'' Lower Education Levels In particular, the risk factors for male abusers include intermittent employment or unemployment, as well as having less than a high school education, the UCLA-USC team found. Lower education levels, which are linked with lower economic status, may render men less able to communicate their frustrations, other researchers have suggested. (The study's findings are consistent with statistics on the income of those convicted of domestic violence in Santa Clara County. A Mercury News series reported in September that convicted batterers in the county probation department's intensive unit were overwhelmingly poor: 83 percent earned less than $25,000 annually. The figures came from a San Jose State University study that also found seven out of the 10 convicted batterers were members of minority groups.) Violence against women can be so prevalent that it becomes an ugly part of the landscape. The Philadelphia study showed that poor women who seek care for their injuries in emergency rooms are more likely to have been assaulted in their neighborhoods by friends and acquaintances than by their intimate partners -- often out of doors and overwhelmingly as witnesses watch. ``It becomes the norm, the way to resolve conflicts,'' said Jacquelyn Campbell, a violence researcher and nurse at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. But the Philadelphia findings -- which Campbell found striking -- suggest that violence is not an individual failing merely requiring one-on-one attention. Instead, she said, it is a community problem crying out for community attention and intervention. That might include everything from improving economic and housing conditions to developing a more protective police force alert to violence against women and developing long-term screening programs in hospital emergency rooms. ``It's not easy,'' she said. ``And it's not free.'' An editorial in the journal takes a similar stand. ``Perhaps nothing would constrain violence against women more than crystal-clear public and cultural messages that such behavior will not be tolerated,'' writes Martha Minow, a faculty member of Harvard Law School. The two studies in the journal compared abused women being treated in emergency rooms for their injuries with female patients being treated for other medical complaints. The UCLA-USC team looked at 256 abused adults and 659 non-abused peers; the Philadelphia team compared 405 adolescent girls and women with 520 peers. The most dramatic finding in the UCLA-USC study was that alcohol abuse by male partners in general increased the risk of domestic violence by more than three times and that the more men drank, the greater their likelihood of being physically abusive. - --- MAP posted-by: Eric Ernst