Developing an evidence-based health advocacy intervention for women who have left an abusive partner.

Improving the health and health care of women who experience intimate partner violence (IPV) is one of the goals of our program of research. Up to this point we have focused on building knowledge about women’s experiences of leaving abusive partners (Merritt-Gray & Wuest, 1995;Varcoe & Irwin, 2004;Wuest & Merritt-Gray, 1999, 2001), family health promotion post-leaving the abusive partner (Ford-Gilboe,Wuest, & Merritt-Gray, 2005;Wuest, Ford-Gilboe, Merritt-Gray, & Berman, 2003;Wuest, Merritt-Gray, & Ford-Gilboe, 2004), and how to improve health care (Varcoe, 2001). Currently, our Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) New Emerging Team is conducting research into the health, social, and economic effects of IPV on women in the early period after they have left an abusive partner. In this paper, we describe how we are transferring knowledge from our previous and current research to develop an intervention to promote the health and quality of life of women who have left an abusive partner.