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Physical health conditions and intimate partner violence: A gendered issue

    Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a widespread global public health issue with serious and long-lasting consequences. While much research has focused on the mental health consequences of IPV, such as depression and PTSD, there is limited evidence on its association with physical health.

    This study explored how different types and number of types of IPV are linked to specific physical health conditions, and whether these associations differ between men and women. VISION researchers Dr Ladan Hashemi, Dr Anastasia Fadeeva and Professor Sally McManus, with Nadia Khan, City St George’s UoL, examined this using data from the 2014 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey.

    Key findings include:

    • Women were more likely to experience IPV and a higher number of IPV types than men.
    • Women’s experience of lifetime and 12-month IPV were significantly associated with 12 and 11 different physical health conditions, respectively, while men’s experience of lifetime and 12-month IPV were significantly associated with 4 and 1 conditions, respectively.
    • Different types of IPV types were associated with different types of physical health condition, particularly among women.
    • A cumulative association between experiencing a greater number of IPV types and an increased risk of physical health conditions was evident for women but not for men.

    The research concludes that IPV is a gendered issue, with stronger associations between IPV and physical health evident in this data for women than for men. This may be because women are more likely to experience more and multiple types of IPV, more frequently, and more often with injury. Healthcare systems must recognise IPV as a priority issue, ensuring support is tailored to those affected.

    Recommendation

    • Healthcare systems need to address IPV as a priority health issue for the female population. Gender-informed approaches in IPV intervention strategies and healthcare provision are required. This means emphasising the development of IPV-responsive healthcare systems and comprehensive IPV curricula in medical and health training.

    To download the paper: Intimate partner violence and physical health in England: Gender stratified analyses of a probability sample survey – Ladan Hashemi, Anastasia Fadeeva, Nadia Khan, Sally McManus, 2025

    To cite: Hashemi L, Fadeeva A, Khan N, McManus S. Intimate partner violence and physical health in England: Gender stratified analyses of a probability sample survey. Women’s Health. 2025;21. doi:10.1177/17455057251326419

    For further information, please contact Ladan at ladan.hashemi@citystgeorges.ac.uk

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    Synthetic datasets enable linkage and a longitudinal understanding of experiences of violence and health impacts and consequences

      Violence is a complex social problem and a public health issue, with implications for the health and social care systems, police and justice systems, as well as significant productivity losses for those who experience it. Analysing data collected by these systems can aid understanding of the problem of violence and how to respond to it. In social research, analysing administrative records together with survey data has already enabled better measurements of violence and its costs, capturing experiences of both victim-survivors and perpetrators across multiple points in time and social and economic domains.

      Ideally, data from the same individuals would enable linkage and a longitudinal understanding of experiences of violence and their (health) impacts and consequences. However, most studies in violence-related research analyse data in silo due to difficulties in accessing data and concerns for the safety of those exposed. This is particularly the case for data from third sector specialist support services for victims or perpetrators of violence which has, to VISION’s knowledge, not been linked or combined with other datasets. Because these services provide person-centred trauma-informed care and there is a risk that information on their service users may be used against them in courts or by immigration authorities, direct data linkage is not possible and alternatives are needed.

      With this research, VISION researchers Dr Estela Capelas Barbosa, Dr Niels Blom, and Dr Annie Bunce provide a proof-of-concept synthetic dataset by combining data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and administrative data from Rape Crisis England and Wales (RCEW), pertaining to victim-survivors of sexual violence in adulthood. Intuitively, the idea was to impute missing information from one dataset by borrowing the distribution from the other.

      The researchers borrowed information from CSEW to impute missing data in the RCEW administrative dataset, creating a combined synthetic RCEW-CSEW dataset. Using look-alike modelling principles, they provide an innovative and cost-effective approach to exploring patterns and associations in violence-related research in a multi-sectorial setting.

      Methodologically, they approached data integration as a missing data problem to create a synthetic combined dataset. Multiple imputation with chained equations were employed to collate/impute data from the two different sources. To test whether this procedure was effective, they compared regression analyses for the individual and combined synthetic datasets for a variety of variables.

      Results show that the effect sizes for the combined dataset reflect those from the dataset used for imputation. The variance is higher, resulting in fewer statistically significant estimates. VISION’s approach reinforces the possibility of combining administrative with survey datasets using look-alike methods to overcome existing barriers to data linkage.

      Recommendations

      • Imputing missing information from one dataset by borrowing the distribution from the other should be applicable for costing exercises as it permits micro-costing. 
      • Compared to traditional research, VISION’s proposed approach to data integration offers a cost-effective solution to breaking (data-related) silos in research.

      To download the paper: Look-alike modelling in violence-related research: A missing data approach | PLOS One

      To cite: Barbosa EC, Blom N, Bunce A (2025) Look-alike modelling in violence-related research: A missing data approach. PLoS ONE 20(1): e0301155. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301155

      For further information, please contact Estela at e.capelasbarbosa@bristol.ac.uk

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      Criminology hindered by lack of longitudinal data to study consequences of victimisation

        VISION researchers Dr Vanessa Gash and Dr Niels Blom write in their latest publication, Measures of Violence within the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Survey and the Crime Survey for England and Wales: An Empirical Assessment, that the field of criminology has been hampered by a lack of longitudinal data to examine the consequences of victimisation.

        However, recently, ‘Understanding Society’, the United Kingdom Household Panel Survey (UKHLS), began fielding a small battery of questions relating to violence experience. Here, we examined the strengths and weaknesses of these UKHLS measures with similar indices from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), a widely used and regarded but cross-sectional survey.

        Vanessa and Niels empirically assessed the extent to which the UKHLS variables are comparable with those in the CSEW to determine the viability of the UKHLS for the longitudinal study of (fear of) violence and its consequences.

        Overall, they regarded the UKHLS to provide an important resource for future panel research on the consequences of victimisation. They found the indicators measuring physical assault to be similar in both sets of data, but also noted differences in prevalence and/or different distributions by socioeconomic group for the indices relating to being threatened and of feeling unsafe.

        Nonetheless, Vanessa and Niels maintain their utility for researchers in this field, allowing researchers to uncover new inequalities in violence exposure.

        For further information please see: Measures of Violence within the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Survey and the Crime Survey for England and Wales: An Empirical Assessment

        Or contact Dr Vanessa Gash at vanessa.gash.1@city.ac.uk

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        Intimate partner violence: Asking the right questions?

          VISION Interim Director Gene Feder collaborated with Valeria Skafida from the University of Edinburgh and Christine Barter from the University of Central Lancashire to undertake a critical analysis of UK longitudinal and repeated cross-sectional population surveys which asked about experiences of intimate partner violence and abuse (IPVA).

          Seven relevant UK representative population-based surveys which asked about IPVA among adults and/or young people (16–17 years old) were identified. They critically engaged with the questionnaires to analyse the strengths and limitations of existing UK data on IPVA.

          Several limitations in UK surveys were identified. Many questions still showed a bias, partly historical, towards collecting more data about physical abuse. Few surveys asked about financial abuse, abuse post-separation or through child contact, or through technologies, though improvements were under way.

          Surveys still sought to count incidents of abuse, instead of enquiring about the impact of abusive behaviours on victims. Ethnicity and other demographic variables were not always adequately captured (or accessible to data users), making it difficult to explore aspects of inequality. Potentially useful comparisons within the UK were difficult to undertake given the increasingly divergent questionnaires used in different UK nations.

          They discussed how future iterations of existing surveys or new surveys can improve with regards to how questions about IPVA are asked. Given that surveys across geographical contexts often suffer similar weaknesses, their findings are relevant for IPVA survey methodology beyond the UK context.

          For further information please see: Asking the Right Questions? A Critical Overview of Longitudinal Survey Data on Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse Among Adults and Young People in the UK | SpringerLink