The Lethality Assessment Program 2.0: Adjusting intimate partner violence risk assessment to account for strangulation risk

The Lethality Assessment Program (LAP) assists police responding to intimate partner violence incidents by connecting victims identified as high risk with advocates while police are at the scene. The Lethality Screen is the risk assessment used with the LAP. This manuscript focuses on evaluating and refining changes to the Lethality Screen that prioritize strangulation as a risk item that automatically places a survivor in the high-danger category. Secondary data from the Oklahoma Lethality Assessment (OK-LA) Study (n=234) were utilized for analysis. Researchers and community partners collaborated to explore various options for revising the Lethality Screen given the goal of the community partner to prioritize strangulation on the risk assessment. The final adaptation of the Lethality Screen was examined for its ability to predict near fatal violence, severe violence, violence and abuse by an intimate partner at 7 months follow-up. The revised Lethality Screen has high sensitivity (84-93%), low specificity (14-16%), and broad ranges of negative predictive value (47-94%) and positive predictive value (12-63%). Revisions to the Lethality Screen are discussed in conjunction with additional adaptations that were made to the LAP, resulting in the LAP 2.0.