How Much We Know About Intimiate Partner Violence Across Racial and Ethnic Groups

By Jonathan Schwabish and Nathaniel Anderson; Visuals by Ben Southgate

Each circle in the graphic is scaled by the share of people in each state and the racial/ethnic groups who suffered from sexual violence or intimate partner violence. Groups for which we do not have reliable estimates (either because of small sample size or a high relative standard error) are represented with an “X”.

As an example, take a look at the blue circle in the middle of the graphic that shows estimates for Hawaii. Our analysis of the BRFSS shows that just above 2 percent of Asian Pacific Islanders in Hawaii were victims of sexual abuse in 2005, and nearly 15 percent suffered from intimate partner violence. But for both measures, the share of Asian Pacific Islanders surveyed was smaller than the share of Asian Pacific Islanders in Hawaii, according to the ACS. While the ACS finds that Asian Pacific Islanders make up 53 percent of the population in Hawaii, they make up only 42 percent of the BRFSS survey on sexual violence and only 22 percent of those surveyed about intimate partner violence.