The research upon which this book is based began in 1977 and continues to the present. It started with a sample of 520 records of women's visits to the surgical emergency service of the Yale- New Haven Hospital. The research eventually encompassed the clinical histories of 4,500 women who used the hospital in the late 1970's and early 1980's, including more than 1,000 battered women, emergency room patients, mothers of abused children, women who attempted suicide, rape victims, psychiatric emergency patients, and women using the hospital's obstetrical service. The initial goal was to document the extent of domestic violence and its significance for women's health. After examination of the data, another goal emerged: to evaluate the appropriateness of the clinical response and suggest ways to improve it. The chapters in Part I review the empirical findings from the early research, show how domestic violence and the medical response converge in the evolution of a battering syndrome, and link this process to large social and historical currents. Part II views the overall significance of domestic violence for women's health through the prism of child abuse, female suicidality, and homicide, three of its most extreme outcomes. Part III traces the implications of the theory and data for improved practice in medicine, social work, and community health. The chapter on mental health that introduces the part on clinical interventions reframes prevailing models of treatment in terms of recent knowledge regarding the coercive elements in battering. For individual chapters, see NCJ-161220-28. 320 references, chapter tabular data, and name and subject indexes