New research led by the VISION Consortium has identified differences in the trends and prevalence of violence victimisation between England and Wales, using data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW).
The CSEW annual public survey records information on violent crime, and is a useful tool in understanding experiences of violence alongside other data, such as service data provided by health boards, as it records information on violence even if the victim did not seek support from services. The survey results are used by the Office for National Statistics to estimate prevalence of violent crime and changes over time for England and Wales combined. This recent study, led by Dr Polina Obolenskaya with support from VISION Consortium colleagues including from the Violence Prevention Team, Public Health Wales, sought to understand if there were differences in the prevalence and trends in violence between England and Wales, to contribute to an understanding of the picture of violence in Wales to better inform violence prevention strategy and policy.
Separating the data by country shows that the prevalence of violence was generally lower in Wales than in England for the first decade of the century. The research team also conducted analysis by gender, which revealed further disparities between countries. Male victims in Wales and England and female victims in England experienced a decline in violence between 2002 and 2015. However, no decline in violence was evident for female victims in Wales until after 2016. Furthermore, while there was an upturn in prevalence of violence among females in England since 2015, there was a decline in violence experienced by females in Wales after 2016. This decline in violence against women in Wales coincides with the introduction of the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015.
The research recommends that, in Wales, Wales-specific estimates and trends in violence should be used to inform strategic planning.
“Violence is a public health concern, with significant individual, economic, health and social care costs. Different patterns of violence in England and Wales indicates there may be difficulties in relying on combined estimates of violence for England and Wales in strategy development and planning for violence prevention in Wales.
“We are looking forward to continuing this work with our VISION colleagues and partners across England and Wales to explore how we can best progress the recommendations from the research.”
Lara Snowdon, Violence Prevention Programme Lead, Public Health Wales
Download the article: Temporal trends in prevalence of violence in Wales: analysis of a national victimisation survey (sciencedirect.com) - please note the article is only available in English.