The first robust evidence on the association between IPV and suicidality and self-harm to cover both men and women and adults of all ages in England. We showed that IPV is common in England, especially among women, and is strongly associated with self-harm and suicidality.
People presenting to services in suicidal distress or after self-harm should be asked about IPV. Interventions designed to reduce the prevalence and duration of IPV might protect and improve the lives of people at risk of self-harm and suicide. We show that strategies for violence reduction should form part of individual-level suicide risk assessment and safety planning, and they should feature in national suicide prevention strategies.
For further information and the article please see: Intimate partner violence, suicidality, and self-harm: a probability sample survey of the general population in England – PubMed (nih.gov)
Illustration: Grigoreva Alina /Shutterstock.com
The knife is a relatively mundane, domestic and easily accessible household item. However, at the same time, it is often the weapon of choice for inflicting fatal violence against women in their homes.
In recent years, the knife has become an object of fear and panic in England and Wales when used in public by mostly young men on other young men. Overlooking the use of knives against women in ‘private’ spaces, much media coverage of ‘knife crime’ has centralised it as a problem confined to young Black men in urban environments. This attention has triggered a number of strategies and powers to tackle ‘knife crime’, primarily focusing on expanding stop and search powers, increasing prisons spaces, and launching (discriminatory) public awareness campaigns. However, all of these policy measures fail to tackle the use of knives in private spaces.
Viewed through three lenses of space, gender and materiality, this article analyses the gendered and spatialized aspects of ‘knife crime’ which are very often hidden in public and policy discourses. Situated in this way, the contemporary preoccupation with ‘knife’ crime illustrates the ongoing and deeply held assumptions surrounding debates on public and private violence. We argue that policy must recognise ‘knife crime’ as more than a problem faced only by young men in public, and addressed as a threat to women in private spaces.
For further information and the article, please see: Gendered objects and gendered spaces: The invisibilities of ‘knife’ crime (sagepub.com)
The aim of this study was to estimate the lifetime cost of sexual violence and abuse in Essex, UK and evidence return on investment for support services. There were three main methodological components to this study. First, a rapid review using a systematic approach was be conducted to identify relevant unit costs that may be attributable to child and adult sexual violence and abuse. Second, administrative data was analysed, and regression predictions based on multiple imputation used to infer adjusted relative proportions attributable to each victim of sexual violence and abuse. Administrative data was also be used to infer the duration of harm where relevant. Finally, an estimate of the cost of sexual violence and abuse was be calculated by cost component, differentiating between child sexual violence and adult sexual violence.
For further information and the article, please see: Estela Capelas Barbosa: Final report (vamhn.co.uk)
Photo credit: Sarah Agnew / Unsplash
In health-care settings, asking about trauma is recognised as good practice. Yet in research studies, whether to address trauma and how is contested.
Some studies prioritise inclusive samples and questions about lived experience. Others avoid potentially retraumatising topics and exclude people considered too vulnerable to participate. While ethical review and safeguarding is essential, at what point does protection become paternalism, and who gets to decide where that line is drawn? Just as harm to participants is unethical, might exclusion from research – at times – also be unethical and a form of epistemic harm?
For further information and the article, please see: Risk, responsibility, and choice in research ethics – The Lancet Psychiatry
Photo credit: fizkes / Shutterstock.com
When economists estimate the health, social, and economic costs of violence, they often apply the common economic practice of ‘discounting’. Discounting involves reducing the estimated value of the future relative to the present, year by year, by a given percentage.
We argue that economists should more fully recognise the longer-term harms of violence in their cost-benefit analyses and re-examine the practice of discounting future health costs. Such a change could lead to a re-evaluation of the level of public funds to invest in violence prevention and support the health needs of victims.
Trafficking is used as a case study to illustrate the impact of discounting on costing violence.
For further information and the article, please see: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2022.858337/full?utm_source
