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Violence and family tradition

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I�m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

In some families, abuse amounts to a family tradition. It gets passed down.

Dr. William Holmes of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine looked at men in a Philadelphia area with high rates of violence against women and girls. He was checking for men who were abused as children � things like being punched, choked or burned.

The study, supported by the National Institutes of Health, was in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Holmes� survey found about half the men had been abused, generally by a parent, most often the mom. He notes that many of these men who were abused as boys may have been abused by single moms.

"We may have a situation in which many men who have been physically abused as children have been abused by their moms and have learned an approach to domestic conflict resolution that includes violence." (13 seconds)

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: November 30, 2005

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