Women's perceptions of their community's social norms towards assisting women who have experienced intimate partner violence.

The role of social norms has played an often unrecognized role in the perception of and action to assist low-income urban women who are in violent relationships. Two forms of social norms will be assessed, including descriptive norms--what people typically do to assist women in a violent relationship--and injunctive norms--defined as what people should do to assist women. This study will present our initial findings into the development of measures to assess women's perception of their community's social norms toward assisting women who have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) and how these norms are related to women's perception of the community, reasons for community assistance toward women experiencing IPV, and women's own experience of IPV.