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Preventing Domestic Violence: DELTA and EMPOWER Evaluations

Each year, almost five million women are victims of intimate partner-related physical assaults and rapes. In 2005, more than 1,500 people died as a result of intimate partner violence, with women being the victims more than three-quarters of the time. (CDC fact sheet)

Since 2002, Mathematica has worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to evaluate two major initiatives to prevent intimate partner violence and sexual violence: (1) Domestic Violence Prevention Enhancement and Leadership Through Alliances (DELTA) and (2) Enhancing and Making Programs and Outcomes Work to End Rape (EMPOWER). In DELTA, 14 state domestic violence coalitions were funded to support local coalition efforts to prevent intimate partner violence. In EMPOWER, four state health departments were funded (joined by two unfunded states) to build statewide capacity for primary prevention of sexual violence.

On both projects, Mathematica has applied a developmental evaluation approach to design and conduct the cross-site evaluation. We have worked in close collaboration with CDC and grantees to develop measurement tools, collect data, and interpret results. In the DELTA evaluation, we collaborated with CDC and grantees to assess the individual and organizational capacity of the state and community coalitions for preventing intimate partner violence. In EMPOWER, we worked with grantees to develop and administer a self-assessment tool to examine system capacity at the state level. Both evaluations have had a strong orientation toward continuous quality improvement and have involved collecting information that grantees will use to strengthen program quality.

In a related project launched in 2010, Mathematica is providing evaluation support to CDC in collecting follow-up data to measure the current status of DELTA grantees’ organizational capacity. This new information will help CDC and grantees assess changes in organizational capacity since the original data was collected in 2007 and identify capacity-building needs for future training and technical assistance.

Publications

"Changes in Capacity Among Local Coordinated Community Response Coalitions (CCRs) Supported by the DELTA Program," Journal of Family Social Work (July 2010)