Intimate partner violence among women with and without disabilities: a pooled analysis of baseline data from seven violence-prevention programmes

Abstract

IntroductionIntimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious public health and human rights violation which impacts approximately one in three women worldwide. Some existing evidence suggests that women with disabilities are at higher risk of IPV, but is largely limited in geographical scope to the Global North, and comparison across settings has been hampered by inconsistent measurement of both IPV and disability.MethodsPooled analysis of baseline data from 8549 adult women participating in seven IPV prevention studies in five countries across Africa and Asia that used collaborative, comparative measurement strategies to assess both disability and IPV.ResultsAfter adjusting for age, women with disabilities were more likely to experience past 12-month physical IPV (adjusted OR (aOR)=1.79; 95% CI 1.49 to 2.17), sexual IPV (aOR=1.98; 95% CI 1.36 to 2.89), emotional IPV (aOR=1.84; 95% CI 1.49 to 2.27) and economic IPV (aOR=1.66; 95% CI 1.45 to 1.89), with an overall association between disability and past 12-month physical/sexual IPV of aOR=1.93 (95% CI 1.52 to 2.46). Compared to women without disability, women with moderate and severe disability showed a trend of increasing risk of IPV in the past 12 months for each of physical, sexual, emotional and economic IPV. Overall, both women with moderate disability (aOR=1.86, 95% CI 1.57 to 2.21) and women with severe disability (aOR=2.63; 95% CI 1.95 to 3.55) were significantly more likely to experience any form of IPV when compared with women without disability.ConclusionWomen with disabilities are at increased risk of past-year IPV compared to women without disabilities across a range of settings in the Global South, and the risk of IPV increases with increasing severity of disability. IPV prevention and response efforts in these settings must find ways to include and address the needs of women with disabilities, including increased outreach and improved accessibility of programmes.

New learnings on drivers of men’s physical and/or sexual violence against their female partners, and women’s experiences of this, and the implications for prevention interventions

“…However, it is not yet systematically integrated into IPV prevention research. The majority of What Works research projects included the Washington Group Short Set (WGSS) of questions [70] to assess disability and a pooled analysis of What Works baseline data demonstrated that disabled women were twice as likely to report recent experience of IPV [71]. Of note is that one of the domains assessed in the WGSS is impairment in cognitive function (remembering/concentrating) which is a common symptom of mental health problems, especially PTSD, which may result from experience of violence.…”

How do programmes to prevent intimate partner violence among the general population impact women with disabilities? Post-hoc analysis of three randomised controlled trials

“…The same analysis also showed that the odds of reporting recent IPV increased with increasing severity of disability: women with severe disability reported higher odds of IPV (aOR=2.63; 95% CI: 1.95 to 3.55), as did women with moderate disability (aOR=1.86, 95% CI: 1.57 to 2.21), compared with women without disabilities. 11 Women with disabilities experience increased rates of IPV because the interplay of social, gendered and economic processes associated with stigma towards and discrimination against disabled people which exacerbate their vulnerabilities and limit their options for self-protection. Women with disabilities often have less education, and are therefore poorer, 14 and may have additional out-of-pocket costs for healthcare and adaptive devices expenses, further exacerbating poverty.…”

“…The obvious advantage was use of a standardised measure and a commonly recommended cut-point designed to yield comparable metrics across diverse settings. 45 While the WG-SS can be used to group participants by severity of disability as we have done elsewhere with some of these data, 11 we lacked the statistical power to compare different levels of disability in these analyses. Differentiating programme impact by severity of disability when possible would benefit future work in this area.…”

“…Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a major threat to women's health and human rights, with around one in three women worldwide reporting experience of physical and/or sexual IPV during their lifetime. 1 A notable body of evidence from the Global North, [2][3][4][5][6] and increasing evidence from the Global South [7][8][9][10][11] shows that women with disabilities are at higher risk of IPV than women without disabilities, including risk for greater duration and severity of IPV. [11][12][13] A recent analysis of pooled baseline data from 8156 women participating in seven IPV prevention trials across the Global South found that women with disabilities were more likely to report experiencing physical and/or sexual IPV…”

Lifetime Prevalence of Intimate Partner Violence and Disability: Results From a Population-Based Study in New Zealand

“…In addition, there is a paucity of data documenting the different subforms of IPV experienced by people with disabilities, with few studies on how disability status is associated with experiences of psychological abuse, controlling behaviors, and economic abuse. 10,23 This is a significant gap because these forms of IPV are highly prevalent in people without disabilities. 24,25 The 2019 New Zealand Family Violence Survey provided an opportunity to address these information gaps.…”