Existing survey tools are a good starting point when designing your evaluation. They include tried and tested questions so the benefits and limitations of them are already known. They will often need some adaptation to match your program and local context.
Measuring changes in the prevalence of VAW (whether using experimental, quasi experimental or non-experimental approaches)
The Domestic Violence Module of the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) is designed to gather data from survivors about their experiences of:
- physical, sexual or psychological violence perpetrated by an intimate partner (IPV)
- physical violence perpetrated by someone other than an intimate partner.
The questions ask women whether they have experienced specific acts or behaviours, meaning they do not have to say whether or not they have experienced ‘violence’.
The survey has been designed so it can measure violence experienced in the last 12 months – and the frequency and severity of that violence. This makes it a potentially good data collection tool when seeking to capture changes in terms of the prevention of violence and in the prevention of the escalation of violence.
The DHS module has been used across a wide range of country contexts at a national or sub-national level. The module – or parts of the module – have also been used in individual program evaluations.
