What factors are associated with recent intimate partner violence? findings from the WHO multi-country study on women's health and domestic violence

By T. Abramsky, C. Watts, C. Garcia-Moreno, K. Devries, L. Kiss, M. Ellsberg, H. Jansen, L. Heise. BMC Public Health, 2011

1,363 citations recorded by the source corpus.

BackgroundIntimate partner violence (IPV) against women is a global public health and human rights concern. Despite a growing body of research into risk factors for IPV, methodological differences limit the extent to which comparisons can be made between studies. We used data from ten countries included in the WHO Multi-country Study on Women's Health and Domestic Violence to identify factors that are consistently associated with abuse across sites, in order to inform the design of IPV prevention programs.MethodsStandardised population-based household surveys were done between 2000 and 2003. One woman aged 15-49 years was randomly selected from each sampled household. Those who had ever had a male partner were asked about their experiences of physically and sexually violent acts. We performed multivariate logistic regression to identify predictors of physical and/or sexual partner violence within the past 12 months.ResultsDespite wide variations in the prevalence of IPV, many factors affected IPV risk similarly across sites. Secondary education, high SES, and formal marriage offered protection, while alcohol abuse, cohabitation, young age, attitudes supportive of wife beating, having outside sexual partners, experiencing childhood abuse, growing up with domestic violence, and experiencing or perpetrating other forms of violence in adulthood, increased the risk of IPV. The strength of the association was greatest when both the woman and her partner had the risk factor.ConclusionsIPV prevention programs should increase focus on transforming gender norms and attitudes, addressing childhood abuse, and reducing harmful drinking. Development initiatives to improve access to education for girls and boys may also have an important role in violence prevention.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Demography, Health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/124d14c4c5378026a820318c409f305314e161d1

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Clinical Psychology

1. Hannah Carton
2. Rachel Heath
3. Amber Peterman
4. Vincent Egan
5. L. Heise

In Demography

1. Rachel Heath
2. Amber Peterman
3. Melissa Hidrobo

In Health

1. Melissa Hidrobo
2. Rachel Heath
3. Amber Peterman
4. Hannah Carton
5. Vincent Egan
6. L. Heise

Citations in the corpus

• Women’s Access to Labor Market Opportunities, Control of Household Resources, and Domestic Violence: Evidence from Bangladesh (2014, positive): “search has also found that education and higher age at marriage are associated with less domestic violence even if a woman does not work outside the home (Abramsky et al. 2011; Koenig, Ahmed, Hossain, and Mozumder 2003; Jejeebhoy and Cook 1997), so I also expect that β2 > 0 in both equations.”
• A Mixed-Method Review of Cash Transfers and Intimate Partner Violence in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (2018, background): “…and women’s risk of IPV (Gage 2005; Foran and O’Leary 2008; Graham et al. 2008; Hindin, Kishor, and Ansara 2008; Dalal, Rahman, and Jansson 2009; Abramsky et al. 2011); one systematic review pools the results of 11 studies and finds that harmful use of alcohol is associated with a 4.6-fold…”
• The dark triad and intimate partner violence (2017, methodology): “Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Personality and Individual Differences j ourna l homepage: www.e lsev ie r .com/ locate /pa id elements of the behaviour (Campbell, 2002; Campbell et al., 2002; Abramsky et al., 2011).”