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.