Developing a Health Promotion Resource for Public Health Priority

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) impacts millions of families worldwide (Watts & Zimmerman, 2002). In fact, in the United States alone on average nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner. During one year, this equates to more than 10 million women and men (National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, 2010). In light of this troubling information, the clinical social worker may find him or herself called upon to serve this most vulnerable population.

Many feel if they seek help, the abuser will find them and it will only get worse. The victims need to feel safe, or else they are not going to use the programs to receive help. As both of these articles reveal, these programs are not working. On the contrary, “The Seriousness of Domestic Violence Is Exaggerated” argues that it’s not because the programs are ineffective, but that it’s due to the increase in social services available. However, due to the countless studies that were done, it has been proven that this domestic abuse is a problem. Moreover, there needs to be more effort taken into putting these programs into action. Improvements in how the programs are put into practice need to be made, since how the programs are put into practice now are not efficient

Intimate partner abuse is a sensitive social topic as well as an important topic with respect to health care and community nursing (Svavarsdottir, 2010). Nurses should be well aware of the signs and symptoms of intimate partner abuse, but its detection can often be difficult. Specific assessment protocols are often useless in detecting abuse because each situation of intimate partner abuse varies (Svavarsdottir, 2010). While identifying victims of physical abuse is difficult, it must be done to implement interventions to assist these victims. Nurses and health care professionals must be prepared to identify these individuals. In addition to identification of victims of intimate partner abuse, healthcare professionals must be diligent in education, which could prevent future incidences of intimate partner abuse.

Dating abuse and domestic violence are becoming increasingly prevalent in today’s society. Ten million people per year report to being abused by their partner (CDC, 2010). Due to the majority of the victims being women, however, the media often overlooks men as victims of domestic abuse. According to The National Domestic Hotline, almost 30% of men in the U.S. have experienced some form of domestic violence. Previous research has attempted to examine the different types of abuse as well as the factors that lead less men to report these incidents (James, 2003; Douglas & Hines 2011).

Social workers have explained the situation an abused victim of family violence is in as high cost and low reward (Griffin, 2015). This is because despite feeling anguish the individual is trapped in the plight because the fear of being alone in the world is a worse alternative (Griffin, 2015). Individuals in such situations do not depart until an outside alternative promises them a better life (Griffin, 2015).

The World Health Organisation (WHO) identified that health promotion was a way of equipping people to have more power enabling them to make choices in regard to improving their well-being (WHO 1986). Ewles and Simnett (2003) determine from this, that the fundamental elements of health promotion

Domestic violence has been prevalent over the years and more cases of men being violated are recorded on a daily basis as there is a record of 1 out of 7 men reportedly abused daily (Sacks, 2014). Domestic violence takes several forms namely physical psychological and emotional. This report focuses on emotional abuse against men. Domestic emotional abuse consists of the act of undermining the victim’s sense of self-worth through constant criticism, belittling, lack of appreciation of any efforts the victim puts in impressing the partner, constant insulting, inducing guilt. It also entails the comparison of the victim with other people in a bid to put off the victim as being inefficient, discouragement, attempts of manipulating victim’s relationship with other people and prohibiting the victim from being their true self (Gerdes, 2012).

The focus of this paper is to bring more public awareness to domestic violence against men. Our research proved that little or no concerns are given to battered men who cry out for help from the law enforcement; in most cases minimum rights are given to them in court. Domestic violence against men is not being addressed with a sense of urgency as it is for women. Limited resources are available for the abused men and minimum funding are provided for assistance of any kind. Statistics show that domestic violence reported rate may be higher for women than men since men tend to hide the abuse due to pride and society stereotype. There is a great need for equal opportunity for the abused victim whether that individual is a male

Life is all about balance. From balancing your diet to your working life and personal life - people often forget to balance their approach to social justice issues; one being the issue of abuse. While society has come a long way in terms of raising awareness and taking action against abuse, men - the minority of victims - are often left out of the conversation. In the process of fighting against abuse, society has created a stigma of only men being the perpetrators of abuse. As a result, this has prevented male victims from seeking help from the law and from society. This reality is horrifying and unfortunate because both genders are being abused, yet society holds different perspectives. Abuse can happen to anyone regardless of your age, gender,

They also influence the choice of strategies and actions for addressing health issues. If health is viewed simply as the absence of disease, then health promotion is seen as preventing disease principally through treatment and drug regimes. If health is viewed as the consequence of healthy lifestyles, then health promotion is seen as education, communication of health messages, giving information and facilitating self-help and mutual aid programmes. If, on the other hand, health is seen as a consequence of the socio-economic and environmental circumstances in which people live, then health promotion becomes a matter of tackling these issues to make healthy choices easier. The first two perspectives are much in evidence in nursing practice. A socio-economic and environmental perspective is more challenging for a setting which still emphasizes one-to-one

There are large volumes of academic literature, media articles, support groups, government reports and interviews which revolve around domestic and family violence. However, the vast majority of these materials focus predominantly on female victims and male perpetrators. This is subsequently shown through the few support services available to male victims, minimal acknowledgement from the public, frequent persecution of all males as perpetrators, and the neglect from both government and media bodies. Further implications occur through the undermining and isolation of genuine male victims- which lead to other issues such as parental alienation, substance abuse and suicide. This research proposal explores the relationship between online resources- including domestic violence support services, government reports, multimedia and news stories- and male victims of domestic and family violence. The collaboration of these sources will show that the media does influence the actions of the community, and can detrimentally impact male victims- particularly in regards to their associated stigmas.

According to statistics found by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Every nine seconds a woman is abused by her husband or intimate partner. At least 1 in every 4 women and 1 in every 9 men have been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in their lifetime. Most often the abuser is one of their own family. Domestic violence is a problem that somehow affects every one of us in this room at some time and is actually the leading cause of injury to women -- more than car accidents, muggings and rapes combined.

In December 2015 £3.5 million was awarded to 46 local authorities to ensure that domestic abuse victims receive help. This means that a range of services will be available throughout the UK and specialist training will be provided for domestic violence advisors (UK, 2015). In 2013 the UK government released a report which provided information on why violence against women and girls matters however there was no such thing for men and young boys. Through statistics and the media it is known that women are abused more than men, but evidence suggests that men are affected by domestic abuse equally as women. As (Finley 2013) clarifies that male victims suffer very similar to female victims as the effects are almost alike in terms of psychological

Within this report a health promotion activity will be evaluated. The meaning and role of health promotion will also be explored along with an evaluation of health education, and exploring the nature of the preventive approach and the behaviour change approach and the role of empowerment in health promotion. Additionally, in this report it will contain two aspects of epidemiology and their effects on health promotion.

Disregarding male victims of abuse is largely due to the perpetuation of a second stereotype-that a man must be masculine through displaying strength and dominance. This juxtaposed with the stereotype