Asking the Abuser
Most domestic violence surveys talk to female victims. A BU researcher surveyed men instead.
There is no shortage of studies documenting abuse of women by their male partners, whether through violence, forced sex, or shunning condoms. Almost all of the evidence, however, comes from surveys of women. Boston University's Anita Raj thought it was time to ask the men. The associate professor at Boston University's School of Public Health polled 283 men at a Jamaica Plain health clinic - most in their 20s, predominantly low-income and minority - who said they had been involved with a woman for three months or more.
More than a quarter of these men, most in their 20s, said they had physically abused their partners in the past year, and about the same percentage said they had forced sex on a partner or insisted on sex when a partner didn't want it. Eighty percent said they didn't consistently use a condom, 18 percent within the past year reported forcing their partner to have sex without a condom.
Raj speculates that the high rates of mistreatment stem from what she calls a "male ideology," a kind of machismo mindset that is so prevalent - and so readily admitted - because it's rarely challenged in the culture in which these men live.
"They either have no idea that what they're doing is wrong and that's why they're telling us, or they know it's wrong and I think they're wanting to disclose it," Raj says. "To me, it's indicative that they either want or need help."
Raj hopes her study, which is being published in the prestigious American Journal of Public Health and will be presented this month at the annual conference of the American Public Health Association, will highlight the need not only to protect women, but to educate men. "We need to start asking the question, because they're actually willing to give us the answer," she says. "And if they can give us the answer, we can actually help them with it."
It sounds like a quixotic goal, but Raj, who has been working in women's and sexual health for more than a decade and now focuses on sexually transmitted disease prevention in the minority community, notes that at one time, the public believed smoking was healthy. "If we believe there are attitudes in society that are promoting poor health, then why wouldn't we change those attitudes or ideologies?"
Domestic violence by the numbers:
Rank among causes of injury to women ages 15 to 44 nationwide: 1
Number of Massachusetts victims who moved into a shelter or safe house in 2003: 3,900
Number of Massachusetts victims turned away from shelters in 2003 due to lack of space: 6,000
Number of restraining orders issued in 2003 in Massachusetts: 40,000
Percentage of 2003 Massachusetts assault victims age 13 and older who knew their assailant: 80
Sources: "Mental Health, a Report of the Attorney General," and Jane Doe Inc. (for Massachusetts numbers). All Massachusetts numbers for fiscal 2003.
Vaccinating Against Cancer
A new vaccine has proved in clinical trials to be nearly 100 percent effective in preventing infection by the strains of human papillomavirus, or HPV, that cause cervical cancer. Now a Boston clinic will help answer another question: Is the vaccine effective in preventing anal cancer? "Young gay men are at particularly high risk to acquire [HPV]," says Dr. Kenneth Mayer (shown above), the medical research director at Fenway Community Health clinic and a professor at Brown University Medical School. Fenway Community Health is one of four research centers in the United States where homosexual men will receive either the vaccine or a placebo and then be monitored for three years. Fenway is hoping to enroll at least 10 volunteers; the vaccine's maker,
Another Use for the Pill
Endometriosis is a painful condition in which tissue from the lining of the uterus grows around the ovaries, fallopian tubes, and elsewhere. Surgery corrects the problem in about half of patients, and "medical menopause" - shutting down tissue growth with a drug called Lupron - is another option, but a costly one, at about $400 a month. A study is underway that compares Lupron with a third, much cheaper option: birth control pills. Dr. Mark Hornstein of the Center for Reproductive Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital is looking at effectiveness but also side effects such as the hot flashes women get from Lupron and weight gain that is sometimes associated with oral contraceptives.
Binge Drinking
Researchers at Harvard's School of Public Health and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention examined whether a college's location has any effect on student drinking. Turns out that colleges with higher rates of binge drinking are more likely to be found in states that have higher rates of the behavior among the general population. In Massachusetts, which has a relatively high rate of binge drinking among the general population (nearly 18 percent, the sixth highest of 40 states surveyed), college students fall in the middle of the pack, a still-high 47 percent. 