Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious problem that has lasting and harmful effects on individuals, families, and communities. The goal for IPV prevention is to stop it from happening in the first place.
Prevention efforts should ultimately reduce the occurrence of IPV by promoting healthy, respectful, nonviolence relationships. Healthy relationships can be promoted by addressing change at all levels of the social ecology that influence IPV: individual, relationship, community, and society.
CDC's Preventing Intimate Partner Violence Across the Lifespan: A Technical Package of Programs, Policies, and Practices highlights strategies based on the best available evidence to help states and communities prevent intimate partner violence, support survivors, and lessen the short and long-term harms of intimate partner violence. The strategies and their corresponding approaches are listed in the table below.
| Strategy | Approach |
| Teach safe and healthy relationship skills |
|
| Engage influential adults and peers |
|
| Disrupt the developmental pathways toward partner violence |
|
| Create protective environments |
|
| Strengthen economic supports for families |
|
| Support survivors to increase safety and lessen harm |
|