Funding public health: The public's willingness to pay for domestic violence prevention programming.

Abstract

The author investigated the willingness of the general public to pay for domestic violence prevention programs. An experimental design was used in a telephone survey of 522 California adults. One of 11 funding methods and one of 4 dollar amounts were randomly assigned to each respondent. Most respondents (79.4%) reported support for domestic violence prevention programming. They were most willing to pay 5 US dollars or less via "user fees" (e.g., increased fines for batterers) and humanitarian "donations" (e.g., sales of special postage stamps). Health departments that want to increase their domestic violence prevention programming need to identify widely accepted methods by which funds can be raised. The methods used here can be applied to numerous public health activities and issues.