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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Michael J. McQuestion, PhD, MPH, Department of Population and Family Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, E4142 Hygiene, 615 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21210, 410-502-6037, mmcquest@jhsph.edu
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is now recognized as a worldwide public health problem. Feminist, status inconsistency, cultures of violence, family resource and exchange theories have all been invoked to explain IPV, however, cross-cultural findings do not consistently support any of these. What is consistent is the observation that IPV is differentially distributed across localities within cultures, even when economic, household and individual factors are controlled, suggesting that local-level endogenous social forces may influence IPV behaviors. In this paper I use social interaction models and data from Colombia’s 1995 Demographic and Health survey to test this hypothesis. I find that a woman’s likelihood of ever having been coerced into sex or being beaten by her partner depends on the proportion of other women in a collectivity reporting those outcomes. The relative risk of ever being beaten was 64% higher for a woman living in a cluster where the proportion of other women reporting beatings exceeded the sample mean. Given this behavioral interdependence, community-level IPV control efforts are warranted.
Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session the participant (learner) in this session will be able to
Keywords: Domestic Violence, Methodology
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.