The scale of the findings challenges long-held assumptions about who is affected by violence in America. According to the report, intimate partner violence alone has touched six in ten women and nearly half of men over their lifetimes. Among women, the severity of some of these experiences is particularly alarming: nearly one in five women, 19 percent, reported potentially lethal intimate partner violence, a category that includes beating, burning, strangulation, or violence involving a knife or gun. By comparison, 3 percent of men reported experiences in this most severe category. The researchers emphasize that these figures are not abstractions but reflect the experiences of millions of people whose encounters with violence often never appear in any police blotter or court record.

Methodologically, USVEX represents a significant departure from the administrative data sources that have historically shaped American understanding of violence. Crime reports and official statistics depend on incidents being formally reported, which means that a substantial share of violent experiences, particularly sexual violence and violence within intimate relationships, remains invisible to researchers and policymakers. By surveying a nationally representative sample of 2,720 adults across all 50 states, administered by NORC at the University of Chicago between October and December 2025 and conducted in both English and Spanish, the study captures experiences that may never reach law enforcement or service systems. This direct-measurement approach allows violence to be examined alongside social, economic, and behavioral health factors, rather than in isolation from the conditions in which it occurs.

The survey builds on a foundation of earlier regional work. It extends the Violence Experiences Across the Lifespan series of studies previously conducted by the Newcomb Institute in California, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, expanding that research program into its first nationally representative survey. This progression from state-level studies to a national baseline matters for the science of violence prevention: without representative national data, researchers cannot reliably track trends over time, identify emerging patterns, or measure whether prevention efforts are actually working. Establishing that baseline, the study’s authors argue, is itself a critical scientific contribution, one that future surveys can measure against.

One of the study’s most consequential findings concerns the relationship between economic hardship and violence. The associations documented are dramatic. Adults who experienced eviction in the previous year were seven times as likely to report recent physical violence, three times as likely to report sexual violence, and nearly five times as likely to report intimate partner violence compared with those who had not. Among people experiencing homelessness, physical violence was five times as prevalent, sexual violence more than three times as prevalent, and intimate partner violence four times as prevalent. Economic vulnerability, in other words, was consistently associated with greater exposure to physical, sexual, and intimate partner violence, suggesting that housing instability and economic precarity are not merely background conditions but central features of the violence landscape.

The connections between violence and behavioral health are equally pronounced. People reporting recent violence were significantly more likely to report depression or anxiety, suicidality, and substance use. The study examined how experiences of physical violence, sexual violence, and intimate partner violence across the lifespan intersect with behavioral health, economic hardship, neighborhood safety, substance use, and other factors associated with both violence exposure and recovery. While the survey design documents strong associations rather than proving causal direction, the pattern is clear: violence, mental health struggles, and substance use cluster together in the same lives and the same communities, reinforcing one another in ways that single-issue interventions are poorly equipped to address.

Timing emerges as another crucial dimension of the findings. The report found that violence rises substantially during adolescence and continues into young adulthood, a period when nearly one-third of adults reported experiencing sexual violence. The researchers identify these life stages as important opportunities for prevention, arguing that interventions targeted at adolescents and young adults could reach people at the moments when their risk is highest. This developmental framing shifts the focus of prevention policy away from reactive responses and toward earlier, more strategic timing, an approach the authors suggest could yield disproportionate benefits given how much lifetime violence exposure appears to be concentrated in these years.

The study also documents stark disparities in who experiences violence. Women reported higher levels of sexual violence and intimate partner violence than men, and LGBTQ+ populations reported disproportionately high levels of violence overall. These patterns, the researchers note, mean that violence is not evenly distributed across the population but follows lines of gender, sexual orientation, and economic circumstance. Understanding this uneven distribution is essential for targeting resources effectively, because a prevention strategy designed around an average experience of violence will inevitably miss the communities where exposure is most concentrated and most severe.

The study’s co-leaders argue that the findings demand a fundamental rethinking of how the United States approaches violence prevention. Anita Raj, executive director of the Newcomb Institute, noted that for too long the understanding of violence has depended largely on crime reports, leaving many experiences invisible, and that the study shows not only how common violence is but how closely these experiences are connected with economic hardship, behavioral health, and other forms of social inequality. Jakana Thomas, professor of political science at UC San Diego, emphasized that the data reveal the disparate ways violence is experienced across communities and that violence prevention cannot occur in isolation. Both argue that effective prevention must be part of a broader strategy addressing economic hardship, mental health, and social inequality alongside violence itself.

The implications reach well beyond academia. By better understanding when violence occurs, who is most at risk, and the conditions associated with it, the researchers contend that prevention efforts and resources can be targeted where they are needed most, from housing and economic support programs to behavioral health services and community-based interventions. The full report is publicly available, giving policymakers, public health officials, and advocates a common evidence base for the first time. As the first comprehensive national survey of its kind, USVEX offers something the United States has lacked: a complete, representative picture of violence as it is actually experienced across American lives, and a baseline against which future progress, or failure, can be measured.

Subject of Research: National survey of violence experiences and their links to health and economic hardship in the United States

Article Title: National study finds violence affects millions across US with links to health, economic hardship

Article References: National study finds violence affects millions across US with links to health, economic hardship. (n.d.). Original publication

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Keywords: violence, intimate partner violence, sexual violence, physical violence, public health, economic hardship, mental health, substance use, national survey, USVEX, prevention, social inequality