The oklahoma lethality assessment study: A quasi-experimental evaluation of the lethality assessment program

This quasi-experimental field trial examined the effectiveness of the Lethality Assessment Program ðLAPÞ, a police–social service collaboration wherein social service practitioners provide advocacy, safety planning, and referral for services over the telephone during police-involved intimate partner violence (IPV) incidents for women at high risk of homicide. We conducted structured telephone interviews with survivors as soon as possible after the incident of violence and again approximately 7 months later. The majority of participants (61.6 percent) recruited during the intervention phase of the study talked to the hotline advocates, and propensity score– matched analyses indicate that women who received the intervention reported using significantly more protective strategies and were victimized by significantly less physical violence than women in the comparison group. While additional research needs to be conducted, this study demonstrates that the LAP is a promising evidenceinformed intervention that holds the potential to increase survivors' safety and foster decisions of self-care.