Domestic Violence, Breast Cancer, & Chris Brown

Every October is both Domestic Violence Awareness Month and Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The simultaneous events mean that domestic violence (DV) victims' advocates spend the month trying to compete with the "Go Pink" commercialization of breast cancer activism. The charts below, show that DV advocates aren't imagining the significant hurdle they must climb to reach public consciousness. According to Google Trends, the number of searches on breast cancer far surpasses google searches for domestic violence (see graph below).

Yet, to put the challenge of generating DV awareness in greater context, interest in Chris Brown is much greater than either women's health issue (as measured by google searches- see graph).  Domestic violence barely even registers and breast cancer only seems to get a bump in attention during October.  It's really not surprising that DV activists latched on to Chris Brown perpetrating domestic violence as an attempt to create some awareness.

Follow #DVAM on Twitter this month for more information about DV and how you can do your part to raise awareness.