Indeed, we saw a near doubling of the self-reports of intimate partner violence among women from pre-pandemic to phase one with the highest pandemic controls. This is not surprising. Past pandemics found the same thing, and early data out of China showed us a three times higher rate of intimate partner violence. The real concern here is that women are often trapped and isolated with the perpetrators, so even if they wanted to ask for help, they simply can't.
We need a multipronged approach. First of all, we need to raise awareness about the fact that intimate partner violence rates are unacceptably high, and they increase directly in response to stress.
Second, we need to ensure that health care providers, front-line health care providers, are equipped with how to ask those sensitive questions of women in a safe way at their general wellness visits, which I understand are largely done through virtual care.
Third, we absolutely need more resources, so that when women do ask for help—and I emphasize that only a small minority of women ask for help when they're in an intimate partner violence situation—resources are available for them. We should be thinking about how resources can be available online, coming back to Dr. Cornish's really important points about virtual care, and how we can ensure that those resources are available to women.
Finally, the last thing I'll say about intimate partner violence is that we know it is disproportionately experienced by indigenous women, women living in rural communities, and women who experience other sex- and gender-based intersections. We need to ensure that when we do have resources, they are absolutely tailored to those communities that are most likely to be experiencing it.