US survey finds 52% of adults experienced lifetime physical violence

Nearly half of US adults report lifetime sexual violence

A national survey of US adults has found that 52% have experienced physical violence during their lifetime and 49% have experienced sexual violence, with researchers saying crime-report data captures only a fraction of the violence people face. The 2025 United States Violence Experiences Survey (USVEX), led by researchers from Tulane University’s Newcomb Institute and the University of California, San Diego, examined experiences of physical, sexual and intimate partner violence, along with how they intersect with behavioral health, economic hardship, neighborhood safety and substance use, among other factors.

The survey of 2,720 adults across all 50 states was conducted between October and December 2025 in English and Spanish using a nationally representative sample administered by NORC at the University of Chicago. The study’s release came three days after a stabbing at a home in Houma, Louisiana, about 60 miles south-west of the Newcomb Institute, killed a woman, her daughter, her son and his girlfriend and wounded a six-year-old. The man whom authorities arrested in connection with the deadly attack had reportedly fathered a child with one of the victims.

Anita Raj, executive director of the Newcomb Institute and a co-author of the study report, told the Guardian that crime reports miss most people affected by violence. “That’s a fraction of people who are affected,” Raj said. “We also don’t want to find out about it at that point because if we’re finding out at that point, the risk for fatality has now gone up.”

The study found that physical violence in the past year affected 5% of adults—about one in 20—with 3% reporting physical abuse not involving a weapon. Lifetime rates of physical violence were identical among women and men at 52%, though the survey documented sharp differences in who perpetrated the violence and where it occurred.

Women most often experienced physical violence at the hands of a spouse or romantic partner, at 61%, while men most commonly experienced violence from a stranger, at 38%. Among men, 25% reported violence by a spouse or romantic partner and 24% by a family member, the study found. Both women (69%) and men (34%) most often reported experiencing physical violence at home; men also reported experiencing violence in public spaces at 30%.

The physical violence that adults experienced carried significant mental health consequences. Among those who experienced physical violence in the past year, 48% of women and 26% of men said the experience resulted in anxiety or depression, the study found. Only a minority of those affected filed formal complaints—10% of women and 17% of men.

On sexual violence, the survey found that 49% of US adults had experienced it during their lifetime, with prevalence significantly higher among women at 68% than among men at 29%. In the past year, 7% of Americans—about one in 14—experienced sexual violence; the rate was 9% among women and 4% among men. The study noted that sexual harassment accounted for much of this violence.

Strangers were the most commonly reported perpetrators of sexual violence in the past year, accounting for 58% of cases involving women and 66% of cases involving men. Acquaintances or community members were the next most commonly reported perpetrators, at 47% for women and 41% for men. Locations differed by gender: most women who experienced sexual violence in the past year reported it occurred in public spaces, at 55%, while 64% of men said it occurred at home.

Among women who experienced sexual violence in the past year, 42% reported suffering from depression or anxiety; 39% of men said the violence they experienced resulted in anxiety or depression. The study also found that 4% of women and 10% of men who experienced sexual violence during the past year considered suicide.

Intimate partner violence was widespread in the survey’s findings. The study reported that 61% of women and 45% of men had experienced IPV during their lifetime. Nearly one in five women, or 19%, reported potentially lethal IPV—including beating, burning, strangulation, or violence involving a knife or gun—compared with 3% of men.

Experiences of violence rose sharply during adolescence and continued climbing into young adulthood. By young adulthood, nearly one-third of adults reported having experienced sexual violence, the study found.

Economic hardship was closely linked to recent violence exposure. Adults who had been evicted in the previous year were seven times more likely to report recent physical violence, three times more likely to report sexual violence and nearly five times more likely to report intimate partner violence, the study noted.

Raj pointed to economic shocks as raising acute vulnerability. “What we really see are what we call economic shocks that increase their very acute vulnerability,” she said. “So [those are] things like not having enough money to meet basic needs like food … an eviction, or having been homeless in the past year.” She also noted that early-life exposure creates lasting vulnerability. “At the same time, we also see the early experiences of violence,” Raj said. “When you’ve had those experiences early in life, you are more vulnerable to them throughout your life, and so that’s really a piece of this.”

“It shouldn’t take a fatality for you to understand risk for fatality,” Raj said in describing the study’s approach. “By assessing behaviors that women have experienced that could have killed them, you have a better understanding of how much risk for fatality from domestic violence there actually is.”

Jakana Thomas, a political science professor at UC San Diego and a co-author of the study, echoed the call for a broader strategy. “These findings show that violence prevention cannot occur in isolation,” Thomas said. “It must be part of a broader strategy that also addresses economic hardship, mental health and other forms of social inequality associated with violence.”

A statement from Tulane said the new study grew out of work focused on Louisiana that Raj and her colleagues had done before seeing many of the same patterns emerge nationally. The release came months after The Trace—a non-profit newsroom dedicated to reporting on gun violence—had calculated that the Trump administration had terminated, redirected or delayed more than $1bn in federal grants related to gun violence, public safety, mental health and other efforts to save lives.

The Houma killings occurred two years after Louisiana’s department of health warned that intimate partner violence was a “significant public health concern in the state,” and the state’s rate of women murdered by men has historically been significantly higher than the national average, according to the Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence.