Data Sets on & Related to Violence Against Women
National Resource Center on Domestic Violence (NRCDV)
This list was developed by the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence (NRCDV) in collaboration with the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) to serve as a resource for advocates and others concerned about safety and justice for women and their children. VAWnet provides these resources as a source of information that you can evaluate on your terms and for your own needs, and inclusion on this list does not constitute an endorsement by the NRCDV or NSVRC.
* If you would like to suggest an addition to the list, please use our online contact form.
1. Violence Against Women
|National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)||"National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is the Nation's primary source of information on criminal victimization. Each year, data are obtained from a nationally representative sample of 42,000 households comprising nearly 76,000 persons on the frequency, characteristics and consequences of criminal victimization in the United States. The survey enables the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to estimate the likelihood of victimization by rape, sexual assault, robbery, assault, theft, household burglary, and motor vehicle theft for the population as a whole as well as for segments of the population such as women, the elderly, members of various racial groups, city dwellers, or other groups. The NCVS provides the largest national forum for victims to describe the impact of crime and characteristics of violent offenders."||1973-Present (Redesign 1992)||Bureau of Justice Statistics||Redesign of the National Crime Victimization Survey - A pioneering effort when it was begun in 1972, the survey was redesigned and the new methodology was systematically field-tested and introduced starting in 1989. The first annual results from the redesigned survey were published for 1993.|
|National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAW)||"To further the understanding of violence against women, the National Institute of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention jointly sponsored, through a grant to the Center for Policy Research, a national survey that was conducted from November 1995 to May 1996. The National Violence Against Women (NVAW) Survey sampled both women and men and thus provides comparable data on women's and men's experiences with violent victimization."||1995-1996||
U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice ProgramsNational Institute of Justice
2. Health & Vital Statistics
|Ambulatory Health Care Data||"The NHAMCS is made up of two components: hospital outpatient departments (OPD) and hospital emergency departments (ED). NAMCS and NHAMCS data are used to statistically describe the patients that utilize physician services and hospital outpatient and emergency department services, the conditions most often treated, and the diagnostic and therapeutic services rendered, including medications prescribed. The data are used by public health policymakers, health services researchers, medical schools, physician associations, epidemiologists, and the print and broadcast media to describe and understand the changes that occur in medical care requirements and practices."||1973 - 2002||CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)|
|Healthy People 2010/2020||"Healthy People provides science-based, national goals and objectives with 10-year targets designed to guide national health promotion and disease prevention efforts to improve the health of all people in the United States. Healthy People 2020 contains about 1,200 objectives in 42 Topic Areas designed to serve as this decades framework for improving the health of all people in the United States."||Division of Health Promotion Statistics at the National Center for Health Statistics|
|Mortality Data from the National Vital Statistics System||"The National Vital Statistics System results from an inter-governmental collaboration between NCHS and the 50 states, two cities, and five territories. Shared relationships, standards, and procedures between these organizations form the mechanism by which NCHS collects and disseminates mortality statistical information from death certificates. The vital statistics general mortality data are a fundamental source of demographic, geographic, and cause-of-death information. This is one of the few sources of comparable health-related data for small geographic areas and a long time period in the United States. The data are also used to present the characteristics of those dying in the United States, to determine life expectancy, and to compare mortality trends with other countries. Preliminary and final annual data are available."||Approx.1950 - Present||CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)||National Center for Health Statistics Research Data Center|
|National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) On-line||"The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) provides data about all nonfatal injuries treated in U.S. hospital emergency departments. CDC uses NEISS data to generate nonfatal injury data, including those related to intimate partner violence."||1979-Present||U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission||
NEISS: A Tool for Researchers [PDF]
2003 Map of NEISS Hospitals [PDF]
The data files at the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan have been updated to include 2003 data for The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS)-All Injury Program data and the CDC Firearm Injury Surveillance Study (using NEISS). To access the data files, go to ICPSR at www.icpsr.umich.edu. Users can access the complete list of data files and documentation by entering "NEISS" as the search term, selecting "in all fields", and clicking on the submit button located on the ICPSR homepage.
|National Hospital Discharge and Ambulatory Surgery Data||"The National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS), which has been conducted annually since 1965, is a national probability survey designed to meet the need for information on characteristics of inpatients discharged from non-Federal short-stay hospitals in the United States. The National Survey of Ambulatory Surgery (NSAS), which was initiated by the National Center for Health Statistics in 1994, is a national survey designed to meet the need for information about the use of ambulatory surgery services in the United States."||1965-Present||CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)|
|National Mortality Followback Survey||"The Mortality Followback Survey Program, begun in the 1960's by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), uses a sample of United States residents who die in a given year to supplement the death certificate with information from the next of kin or another person familiar with the decedent's life history. This information, sometimes enhanced by administrative records, provides a unique opportunity to study the etiology of disease, demographic trends in mortality, and other health issues."||1961-1993||CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)||National Mortality Followback Survey (NMFS) Public-Use Data Files|
|National Trauma Data Bank||"Since 1989, the American College of Surgeons (ACS) has been addressing the need for a strong, national trauma care system through the development of the National Trauma Data Bank (NTDB(TM)). The NTDB(TM) has been designed by a collaborative group of ACS Committee on Trauma members, emergency medical organizations, governmental agencies, trauma registry vendors, and other interested parties. The NTDB(TM) now contains over 1.1 million cases from 405 trauma centers in 43 states, US territories, and the District of Columbia, representing 55% of Level I and 32% of Level II trauma centers. The annual call for data is issued every winter or spring. Hospitals are given ample time to submit their data which is included in the Annual NTDB(TM) Report distributed every October. Multiple researchers have used NTDB(TM) information for analyses on a wide range of topics of importance to the trauma community."||1989-Present||American College of Surgeons|
|National Vital Statistics System||"The National Vital Statistics System is the oldest and most successful example of inter-governmental data sharing in Public Health and the shared relationships, standards, and procedures form the mechanism by which NCHS collects and disseminates the Nation's official vital statistics. These data are provided through contracts between NCHS and vital registration systems operated in the various jurisdictions legally responsible for the registration of vital events-- births, deaths, marriages, divorces, and fetal deaths."||1989-Present||CDC's National Center for Health Statistics|
|Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS)||"PRAMS, the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, is a surveillance project of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state health departments. PRAMS collects state-specific, population-based data on maternal attitudes and experiences before, during, and shortly after pregnancy. The goal of the PRAMS project is to improve the health of mothers and infants by reducing adverse outcomes such as low birth weight, infant mortality and morbidity, and maternal morbidity. PRAMS provides state-specific data for planning and assessing health programs and for describing maternal experiences that may contribute to maternal and infant health."||1987-Present||Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state health departments||
Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS): PRAMS Surveillance Reports
|Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS)||"CDC’s WISQARS™ (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System) is an interactive, online database that provides fatal and nonfatal injury, violent death, and cost of injury data from a variety of trusted sources. Researchers, the media, public health professionals, and the public can use WISQARS™ data to learn more about the public health and economic burden associated with unintentional and violence-related injury in the United States."||Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Injury Prevention and Control|
3. Crime & Justice
|Federal Justice Statistics Program||"The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) provides comprehensive information on suspects and defendants processed in the federal criminal justice system. Federal agencies provide extracts from their case management systems, which cover various stages of criminal case processing. Data files have been restricted and can be requested through ICPSR's National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) site. If you have any questions about the accessing the data, please send an email to: email@example.com. If you have questions about the Federal Justice Statistics Program, please send an email to: ASKBJS@usdoj.gov."||Current||Federal Government||
|National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)||"The FBI recognized the need for additional information about crime that was comparable across jurisdictions and included more types of crime. After much study, the FBI launched the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Compared to Summary UCR, NIBRS collects more details on more categories of crime, including concurrent offenses, weapons, injury, location, property loss and characteristics of the victims, offenders and arrestees. Because State and local agencies also collect details outside the scope of NIBRS, such as incident addresses, NIBRS is usually a subset of State and local incident-based data."||1970's-Present||Bureau of Justice Statistics||
NIBRS Resource Guide - The National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) provides a NIBRS Resource Guide which explains NIBRS concepts and file structure.
Incident-Based Reporting (IBR) Resource Center - The Justice Research and Statistics Association (JRSA) has developed an Incident-Based Reporting (IBR) Resource Center which provides example tables derived from NIBRS and SPSS and SAS code to replicate them.
|Uniform Crime Reporting System||"The Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program was conceived in 1929 by the International Association of Chiefs of Police to meet a need for reliable, uniform crime statistics for the nation. In 1930, the FBI was tasked with collecting, publishing, and archiving those statistics. Today, several annual statistical publications, such as the comprehensive Crime in the United States, are produced from data provided by nearly 17,000 law enforcement agencies across the United States."||1930-Present||Federal Bureau of Investigation||
UCR Handbook - The UCR Handbook outlines the classification and scoring guidelines that law enforcement agencies use to report crimes to the UCR Program. In addition, it contains offense and arrest reporting forms and an explanation of how to complete them. The Handbook also provides definitions of all UCR offenses.
4. Children & Youth
|Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS)||"The Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance System (YRBSS) monitors six categories of priority health-risk behaviors among youth and young adults - behaviors that contribute to unintentional injuries and violence; tobacco use; alcohol and other drug use; sexual behaviors that contribute to unintentional pregnancy and STD's, including HIV infection; unhealthy dietary behaviors; and physical inactivity - plus overweight. YRBSS includes a national school-based survey conducted by the CDC as well as state and local school-based surveys conducted by education and health agencies."||1991-Present||Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Disease Control and Prevention|
5. General Data
"The Census Bureau conducts nearly one hundred surveys and censuses every year. By law, no one is permitted to reveal information from these censuses and surveys that could identify any person, household, or business. Data from the following surveys and censuses are available in American FactFinder:
|Current||U.S. Census Bureau||Using FactFinder|
|FedStats||"FedStats offers a full range of official statistical information available to the public from the Federal Government. It can be used to track economic and population trends, education, health care costs, energy use, and more. Provides access to official statistic collected and published by more that 100 Federal agencies."||Current||Federal Government|
|Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System||"The BRFSS, the world's largest telephone survey, tracks health risks in the United States. Information from the survey is used to improve the health of the American people. CDC developed standard core questionnaire for states to use to provide data that could be compared across states. The BRFSS, administered and supported by the Division of Adult and Community Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC, is an ongoing data collection program. By 1994, all states, the District of Columbia, and three territories were participating in the BRFSS."||1984-Present||CDC National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion|
|The Office on Women's Health: Quick Health Data Online||"Quick Health Data Online is an interactive system that provides reliable and easily accessible health data to help assess needs, develop programs, and inform policies. The system is for anyone looking for US health data and is used by the public health community, policymakers, grant writers, researchers, and students. The system provides state- and county-level data for all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and US territories and possessions. Data are available by gender, race and ethnicity and come from a variety of national and state sources. The system is organized into eleven main categories, including demographics, mortality, natality, reproductive health, violence, prevention, disease and mental health. Within each main category, there are numerous subcategories."||U.S. Department of Health and Human Services|
|National Center for Health Statistics State Data||"Working with partners throughout the health community, the National Center for Health Statistics State Data (NCHS) uses use a variety of approaches to efficiently obtain information from the sources most able to provide information. We collect data from birth and death records, medical records, interview surveys, and through direct physical exams and laboratory testing. NCHS is a key element of our national public health infrastructure, providing important surveillance information that helps identify and address critical health problems."||Current||CDC||Women's Health and Mortality Chartbook|
|"CDC funds 17 state health departments to implement the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS). NVDRS enables CDC to pull together vital state-level information from medical examiners, coroners, police, crime labs, and death certificates to gain a more accurate understanding of the problem of violence. These data can help policy makers and community leaders make informed decisions about violence prevention strategies and programs, including those that address intimate partner violence."||2003 - Current||
|Quickfacts||"QuickFacts tables are summary profiles showing frequently requested data items from various Census Bureau programs. Profiles are available for the nation, states, counties, and large cities."||Current||U.S. Census Bureau|
* Another state resource is the criminal justice statistics for each state. For example, California has a Criminal Justice Statistics Center, available through the State Attorney General's office. This site contains statistical tables, reports, publications, links to federal, state and local agency statistics, and links to other criminal statistics services. To see if your state has criminal justice statistics available, check out your state government's website.
There are several places to look for local data that may be useful to advocates and others working to end violence against women. Listed below are some starting points for common places where relevant data may be collected in your community. For contact information, check your local blue pages.
- State Domestic and/or Sexual Violence Coalition (*See VAWnet's US Map for contact information)
- Crisis Centers & Local Shelters
- County Public Assistance
- Child Protective Services
- Area Agency on Aging
- Housing Programs
Legal/Law Enforcement System
- District Attorney's Office
- Police Department
- Court Records
Health Care System
- Hospital/Emergency Room
- Emergency Medical Services
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