CDC Reports on Intimate-Partner Violence

The full title of the CDC's report gives an accurate picture of the report's focus on intimate-partner violence "(IPV"): Intimate Partner Violence and Pregnancy and Infant Health Outcomes — Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, Nine U.S. Jurisdictions, 2016–2022 (Dec. 5, 2025). 

The implications of IPV for public health, maternal health, and infant health are far-reaching, complex, and difficult to solve. Here's a snapshot of this important report:

Summary

What is already known about this topic?

Intimate partner violence (IPV) during pregnancy is a preventable cause of injury and death with negative short- and long-term impacts for pregnant women, infants, and families.

What is added by this report?

During 2016–2022, among women with a live birth in nine jurisdictions, 5.4% experienced IPV during pregnancy. Emotional IPV (5.2%) was more common than physical (1.5%) and sexual (1.0%) IPV. All IPV types were associated with delayed or no prenatal care, depression and substance use during pregnancy, and low infant birth weight.

What are the implications for public health practice?

Addressing multiple IPV types through comprehensive prevention efforts is critical to supporting maternal and infant health.

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) can include emotional, physical, or sexual violence. IPV during pregnancy is a preventable cause of injury and death with negative short- and long-term impacts for pregnant women, infants, and families. Using data from the 2016–2022 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System in nine U.S. jurisdictions, CDC examined associations between IPV during pregnancy among women with a recent live birth and the following outcomes: prenatal care initiation, health conditions during pregnancy (gestational diabetes, pregnancy-related hypertension, and depression), substance use during pregnancy, and infant birth outcomes. Overall, 5.4% of women reported IPV during pregnancy. Emotional IPV was most prevalent (5.2%), followed by physical (1.5%) and sexual (1.0%) IPV. All types were associated with delayed or no prenatal care; depression during pregnancy; cigarette smoking, alcohol use, marijuana or illicit substance use during pregnancy; and having an infant with low birth weight. Physical, sexual, and any IPV were associated with having a preterm birth. Physical IPV was associated with pregnancy-related hypertension. Evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies that address multiple types of IPV are important for supporting healthy parents and families because they might reduce pregnancy complications, depression and substance use during pregnancy, and adverse infant outcomes.

As a side note, this report is an example of the sort of data collection and dissemination that may be at risk in the Trump administration. It appears that the president-elect's advisors, as well as members of Congress, are looking to cut the CDC's budget and scale back some of its public-health activities. I hope cooler heads will prevail, but "Hope is that thing with feathers." 

U.S. DOJ Closes Gun Show Loophole; Judge Kacsmaryk (Of Course) Blocks Rule (Of Course) in 4 States

As I have noted before, firearm violence is a public-health disaster. The Justice Department has taken a major step in the effort to keep firearms out of the hands of high-risk individuals. As reported by the Washington Post and Kaiser Family Foundation (emphasis added):

In a move that officials touted as the most significant increase in American gun regulation in decades, the Justice Department has finalized rules to close a loophole that allowed people to sell firearms online, at gun shows and at other informal venues without conducting background checks on those who purchase them. Vice President Harris and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland celebrated the rules and said they would keep firearms out of the hands of potentially violent people who are not legally allowed to own guns. (Stein, 4/11)

I'm a little late to the party on this development, but this is a big enough deal to warrant paying some attention.

That's the good news. 

Then there's the bad news (from The Hill (6/12/24):

A federal judge in Texas blocked the Biden administration’s attempt to close the so-called gun show loophole on Wednesday, expanding a prior temporary ruling to impact Texas, Louisiana, Utah and Mississippi.

Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled last month that the requirement to run a background check before purchasing a firearm could not go into effect in Texas. His final ruling Wednesday expands that injunction to the three other states.

The judge is the ever-ready, go-to federal jurist in Amarillo for conservative litigants from around the country who are keen to block the Biden Administration's reforms. (Bloomberg Law, May 9, 2024)

Members of Congress have expressed concern about the steady stream of anti-Administration rulings coming out of Amarillo in favor of far-flung litigants, usually with the flimsiest of connections to the Northern District of Texas. But so far, the Northern District judges have rebuffed suggestions to reform their procedures for assigning cases.

Friday's Firearms Decision from SCOTUS: A Few Thoughts

Following up on my two Father's Day posts (here and here) despairing the Supreme Court's tendency to favor gun ownership over gun registration. In their 6-3 Bruen decision two years ago, the Justices struck down a New York firearm regulation. The test, in a majority opinion by Justice Thomas, held:

that when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct.  To justify its regulation, the government may not simply posit that the regulation promotes an important interest. Rather, the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only if a firearm regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s “unqualified command.” (emphasis added)

Lower courts since 2022 have struggled to apply the Bruen test. Part of the confusion arises from the fact that generalist judges aren't necessarily good historians. Beyond that, the historical record is often unclear, especially when it is over 300 years old, and many histories across many disciplines illustrate that there is often for debate about mean even among trained historians. Finally, and perhaps most fundamentally, the Bruen majority didn't explain what justifies making this nation's historical tradition the ultimate test of constitutionality in Second Amendment cases. What's wrong with strict scrutiny and a compelling-state-interest test? 

Last Friday the Court handed down its opinion in the Rahimi case, upholding 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8), the federal statute that prohibits gun possession by anyone who is subject to a domestic violence restraining order and as to whom "the order . . . either contain[s] a finding that the defendant 'represents a credible threat to the physical safety' of his intimate partner or his or his partner’s child, or 'by its terms explicitly prohibit[s] the use,' attempted use, or threatened use of 'physical force' against those individuals. (citations omitted). 

A few things to note:

1. Liberal and conservative justices alike joined the majority opinion, 8-1.
2. The majority's test for constitutionality was a watered-down version of Bruen. Unfortunately, this nation's history and tradition are still the defining inquiry, but an analogous law or policy will suffice. The majority rejected the idea that there must be an historical "twin" in order for the government to prevail.
3. The lone dissenter was Justice Thomas, the author of Bruen. If you want to know how cock-eyed the Bruen test is, his dissenting opinion in Rahimi is a good place to start. A legal test that forbids states or the federal government to keep firearms out of the hands of a person who is an on-going threat to the physical safety of his intimate partner or to a child of either of them -- a policy that is so sensible that it hardly needs to be litigated -- is a deeply flawed legal test.