New Guide for Researchers and Advocates
Thursday, February 15, 2007 11:34 AM

PATH, in collaboration with World Health Organization (WHO) recently released a comprehensive guide for research on Violence Against Women.  The guide is meant for professional researchers of best practices for developing tools and performing analysis ofcomprehensive and comparable research on violence against women.  The guide emphasizes the importance of new research that applies scientific research methods so that there is a standard by which violence against women studies can be compared. 

The guide comes after years of anecdotal and regional research brought the issue of violence against women to the forefront.  It is also meant as a tool for advocates, so that they can better understand the scientific language and methods, so that they can be involved in the implementation, and so that researchers know how to ask the right questions.  The stated emphasis of the guide is intimate partner violence, though the authors recognize that other forms of gender-based violence are not included in this definition. 

Overview of Chapters

  • Chapter 1: Violence Against Women as a Health and Development Issue
  • Chapter 2: Ethical Considerations for Researching Violence Against Women
  • Chapter 3: Developing a Research Strategy
  • Chapter 4: Quantitative Approaches to Reasearch
  • Chapter 5: Qualitative Approaches to Research
  • Chapter 6: The Challenge of Defining and Measuring Violence in Quantitative Research
  • Chapter 7: Developing a Sampling Strategy
  • Chapter 8: Tools for Collecting Quantitative Data
  • Chapter 9: Tools for Collecting Qualitative Data
  • Chapter 10: Building your Research Team
  • Chapter 11: In the Field
  • Chapter 12: Analyzing Quantitative Data
  • Chapter 13: Analyzing Qualitative Data
  • Chapter 14: From Research to Action

The guide includes models and strategies successfuly implemented by the WHO, suggestions for field worker training, and a list of additional research tools.  The authors hope that this improves the quality of research imparted on violence against women, which will, in turn, increase the quality of services and level of awareness for governments, international bodies and local activsts.

Compiled from: Ellsberg M, and Heise L. Researching Violence Against Women: A Practical Guide for Researchers and Activists. Washington DC, United States: World Health Organization, PATH; 2005. (PDF, 259 pages).