Collateral Effects of COVID-19 Stay-at-Home Orders on Violence Against Women in the United States, January 2019 to December 2020

Abstract

Background: The necessary execution of non-pharmaceutical risk-mitigation (NPRM) strategies to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 has created an unprecedented natural experiment to ascertain whether pandemic-induced social-policy interventions may elevate collateral health risks. Here, we assess the effects on violence against women (VAW) of the duration of NPRM measures that were executed through jurisdictional-level orders in the United States. We expect that stay-at-home orders, by reducing mobility and disrupting non-coresident social ties, are associated with higher incident reporting of VAW. Methods: We used aggregate data from the Murder Accountability Project from January 2019 through December 2020, to estimate count models examining the effects of the duration of jurisdictional-level (N=51) stay-at-home orders on femicide. Additionally, we used data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System to estimate a series of count models that examined the effects of the duration of jurisdictional-level (N=26) stay-at-home orders on non-lethal violence against women, including five separate measures of intimate partner violence (IPV) and a measure of non-partner sexual violence. Results: Results from the count models indicated that femicide was not associated with COVID-19 mitigation strategies when adjusted for seasonal effects. However, we found certain measures of non-lethal VAW to be significantly associated in adjusted models. Specifically, reported physical and economic IPV were positively associated with stay-at-home orders while psychological IPV and non-partner sexual violence were negatively associated with stay-at-home orders. The combination measure of all forms of IPV was positively associated with the duration of stay-at-home orders, indicating a net increase in risk of IPV during lockdowns. Conclusions: The benefits of risk-mitigation strategies to reduce the health impacts directly associated with a pandemic should be weighed against their costs with respect to women’s heightened exposure to certain forms of violence and the potentially cascading impacts of such exposure on health. The effects of COVID-19 NPRM strategies on IPV risk nationally, and its immediate and long-term health sequelae should be studied, with stressors like ongoing pandemic-related economic hardship and substance misuse still unfolding. Findings should inform the development of social policies to mitigate the collateral impacts of crisis-response efforts on the risk of VAW and its cascading sequelae.

The Devil in the Details: Changes Under Stable Trends of Femicide in Italy During COVID-19 Lockdowns

“…A survey conducted across the United States, in September and October 2020, involving 222 gender-based violence advocates revealed that 33% perceived that femicides had increased in their communities during COVID-19 (Lynch & Logan, 2021). This results contrast with a study conducted in the United States between January 2019 and December 2020 which showed that, despite an increase in non-lethal forms of violence against women in 2020, femicide was not associated with COVID-19 mitigation strategies when adjusted for seasonal effects (Lewis et al, 2023).…”

A Developmental and Life-Course Approach to Further Understanding of the Nature and Causes of Intimate Partner Violence and Femicide

“…In their work examining six different Spanish-speaking countries across the globe (i.e., not concentrated to one continent), Aebi and colleagues (2021) found no increases in domestic violence, reporting that "the monthly distribution of femicides in 2020 did not differ from their season distribution in any given year" (p. 630). Similarly, within the United States, femicide was also not found to be associated with COVID-19 mitigation strategies when season effects are accounted for (Lewis et al, 2024). 3 The early research on COVID-19 and IPV demonstrated two unique findings: first, lockdowns, social isolation, and economic stress associated with the pandemic increased the vulnerability of women to non-lethal IPV; second, despite theoretical arguments that femicide would increase during the pandemic, the evidence is more mixed with many more findings suggesting that it did not-at least with respect to what is known from data systems which are quite limited.…”

“…In their work examining six different Spanish-speaking countries across the globe (i.e., not concentrated to one continent), Aebi and colleagues (2021) found no increases in domestic violence, reporting that “the monthly distribution of femicides in 2020 did not differ from their season distribution in any given year” (p. 630). Similarly, within the United States, femicide was also not found to be associated with COVID-19 mitigation strategies when season effects are accounted for (Lewis et al, 2024). 3…”

Femicide in the United States: a call for legal codification and national surveillance

“…Lacking a clear legal definition of femicide in the U.S. and a surveillance system that identifies and classifies these murders accurately, such acts may appear isolated, hiding the scope of the problem and limiting public health prevention and legal response. Drawing from our experience researching VAW in the U.S. ( 5 , 17 , 18 ) and lessons learned from countries in Latin America ( 10 , 19 ) and the UK ( 20 – 22 ), we call upon U.S. policy makers to implement three urgent actions regarding the legal conceptualization and surveillance of femicide data in the U.S.: (1) including a clear, comprehensive definition of femicide in the penal code; (2) improve the accuracy and completeness of data on femicide including perpetrators; and (3) increase the ability to disaggregate data on femicides to account for intersectional identities, for example, on the bases of race or ethnicity, class, country-of-origin, gender identity, and sexual orientation.…”

“…Criminal justice surveillance historically took place through the Uniform Crime Report (UCR), where the Supplementary Homicide Reports included contextual data. In 2021, the UCR was replaced with the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), however only 66% of police agencies reported crimes to the new system in 2022 ( 17 , 30 ), which is similar to the problem with the prior system ( 12 ).…”