Neighborhood factors and risk of intimate partner violence victimization and perpetration in a major urban area

Background:

Increasingly, social epidemiological analyses are identifying neighborhood-level socio-environmental characteristics associated with intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization. Less attention has been paid to perpetration; analyses that simultaneously assess the role of neighborhood factors in risk of perpetration and victimization are missing.

Methods:

Using data from structured interviews with 585 men and 330 women recruited via systematic street-intercept methods between 2005 and 2008 in 36 New York City neighborhoods, relations among select neighborhood characteristics and risk of IPV victimization and perpetration, while controlling for median neighborhood income and relevant individual-level factors, were assessed. Informed by social disorganization theory and prior research on lethal IPV outcomes, we assessed a range of individual factors, such as sociodemographic, drug use and relationship, and neighborhood factors, such as collective efficacy, immigrant concentration and items designed to tap informal social control of IPV, using multi-level (GEE) models.

Results:

Results differed by victimization/perpetration and severity. Among women, in fully adjusted models, no neighborhood factors were associated with moderate IPV victimization; neighborhood collective efficacy was associated with decreased risk of severe IPV victimization. Among men, immigrant concentration/isolation is associated with decreased risk of moderate IPV perpetration; lower neighborhood education level was associated with decreased risk of IPV perpetration.

Conclusions:

Identifying the differential impact of neighborhood factors on risk of IPV victimization vs. perpetration is important to informing primary IPV prevention strategies. These results suggest that neighborhood factors may work differently to prevent men from perpetrating and protect women from experiencing IPV.