Healthcare providers serve as an important point of contact for identifying and supporting people experiencing intimate partner violence and sexualized violence -- the most common forms of violence against women -- because this violence has significant negative impacts on health. Indeed, intimate partner violence and sexual violence were recently named among the top five health risks affecting females globally in The Lancet's latest Global Burden of Disease study. The SHAPE Initiative aims to strengthen health system responses to domestic violence (including intimate partner violence) and sexualized violence in Canada through partnership-based intervention and implementation science research and evidence synthesis.

 

Nova Scotia has the highest provincial prevalence of self-reported intimate partner violence among women in Canada and is the primary implementation site within SHAPE. In line with the goals of Nova Scotia's health authorities and provincial government, which declared in September 2024 that intimate partner violence is an epidemic, we aim to promote health system transformation and advance a learning health system approach across the province to continuously improve the capacity of priority programs to prevent and respond to domestic and sexualized violence and meet the diverse needs of survivors, including through inter-sectoral community-health strategies.