The Global Survey on the Invisible Consequences of IPV and GBV
Intimate partner violence and gender-based violence do not end when the violence ends. The consequences reach health, work, finances, parenting, later relationships, social participation, and a survivor's sense of agency, sometimes across generations. Existing statistics underestimate this, because the harm that is hardest to see is rarely counted. Safety in Relationships Oy Ltd is building an annual global survey to make those consequences visible, and we are inviting experts and organizations to take part. Research already links these exposures to long-term health harm; the survey exists to make the full pattern measurable.
What the survey measures
The survey maps the wider consequences of violence across sixteen dimensions, including mental and physical health, financial security, work and education, everyday functioning, parenting, trust, social connection, safety, and recovery. Each question is anchored to three phases: before, during, and after the violence, so the change within one person's life becomes visible.
The survey also makes covert abuse tactics measurable. Alongside physical, sexual, and economic violence, it covers coercive control, gaslighting, isolation, monitoring, reputation attacks, and other tactics that are rarely captured in existing statistics.
How quality is assured
The survey is developed with the evaluoi.ai Impact Intelligence platform. The underlying impact framework is grounded in established research, and the item bank follows strict measurement rules: one idea per question, neutral wording, and scales chosen by item type.
Before launch, the framework and questions are reviewed by an international Delphi expert panel and pretested with survivors. Cross-country comparisons are made only after measurement invariance has been tested across languages and regions.
Privacy and ethics
Responses are anonymous. No one is asked to recount or relive violent events: the survey asks about the effects on life, not the incidents themselves. Every question can be skipped, and sensitive questions are shown together with support resources.
The survey is not therapy, diagnosis, or a crisis service. If you are in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services.
For experts and partner organizations
Right now, the most important way to take part is the Delphi expert panel: we are recruiting an international panel of experts to evaluate the framework and the survey items before launch. Panelists who wish will be credited by name in the survey reports published in the coming years.
We are also looking for two other kinds of partners: organizations that share the survey with their own audiences, and localization partners who help adapt it to new languages and regions.
All participating organizations get access to the accumulating data for their own research, advocacy and funding work. The survey runs annually, so the evidence base grows year by year.