Intimate partner violence in neighborhood context: The roles of structural disadvantage, subjective disorder, and emotional distress

Abstract

Most theoretical treatments of intimate partner violence (IPV) focus on individual-level processes. Some researchers have attempted to situate IPV within the larger neighborhood context, but few studies have sought to link structural- and individual-level factors. The current analyses fill a research gap by examining the role of anger and depression in the association between neighborhood disadvantage and IPV. Using data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS) and the 2000 Census, this study focuses on structural indicators of disadvantage as well as subjective disorder, and highlights the complex associations between neighborhood conditions, emotional distress, and IPV. Findings indicate that anger and depressive symptoms partially explain the association between neighborhood disadvantage and IPV. Additionally, the associations between disadvantage, disorder, and IPV depend on respondent’s level of anger. Results underscore the need to further consider the role of neighborhood factors (both objective and subjective) in relation to IPV, and also suggest the utility of introducing individual-level emotional measures to assess the circumstances under which neighborhoods matter most.

Alcohol use and intimate partner violence among women and their partners in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…Overall, this finding supports the application of ecological models to describe the relationship between alcohol use and IPV as well as previous research that has identified an association between community-level social factors (e.g. neighborhood SES, community violence, and norms) and interpersonal violence (O'Campo et al 1995;Raghavan et al 2006;McKinney et al 2009;Raghavan et al 2009;Jain et al 2010;Robinson et al 2011;McKinney et al 2012;Chong et al 2015;Copp et al 2015;Graham et al 2017). To our knowledge, this is the first study to find an association between prevalence of alcohol use among partnered males and IPV, controlling for individual-level partner alcohol use in LMICs.…”

The social disorganization of intimate partner violence

“…A number of academics consider SDT as a mechanism to explain neighbourhood IPV (Benson et al, 2003;Browning, 2002;Copp, Kuhl, Giordano, Longmore, & Manning, 2015;DeKeseredy et al, 2003;Frye, 2007;Frye et al, 2008;Gracia & Herrero, 2007;Gracia et al, 2014;Jackson, 2016;Kiss et al, 2012;Pinchevsky & Wright, 2012;St. Jean, 2007;Uthman, Moradi, & Lawoko, 2009).…”

Neighborhood Norms, Disadvantage, and Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration

“…2010; Straus 2011), and the extensive amount of scholarship linking jealousy/cheating and gender attitudes to IPV at the individual level (e.g., Copp et al. 2015; Giordano et al. 2010; Giordano et al.…”

“…In one of the few neighborhood‐level investigations of IPV among adolescents and young adults, Jain and colleagues (2010) found that neighborhood social processes (i.e., collective efficacy) partially mediated the effect of neighborhood disadvantage on dating violence. More recently, Copp and colleagues (2015) found that the link between neighborhood disadvantage and IPV was partially explained by individual‐level indicators of emotional distress (anger and depressive symptoms). Thus, based on the more general literature on neighborhood effects as well as the limited work on neighborhoods and IPV, evidence suggests that neighborhood disadvantage “matters,” but that it is insufficient as an explanation for the neighborhood variation in violence.…”

“…For example, liberal norms regarding relationships and sexuality (e.g., it's okay to date more than one person at a time) may foster resentment or exacerbate concerns about partner infidelity, thus contributing to the use of violence within the dyadic context. That these broader patterns have been largely ignored is surprising given the increasing focus on relational factors with regard to IPV (e.g., Ford 2017;Fritz, Slep, and O'Leary 2012;Giordano et al 2010;Straus 2011), and the extensive amount of scholarship linking jealousy/cheating and gender attitudes to IPV at the individual level (e.g., Copp et al 2015;Giordano et al 2010;Giordano et al 2015;Langhinrichsen-Rohling, McCullars, and Misra 2012;Reed et al 2011). Furthermore, existing theorizing about these structural and social influence processes has not been fully incorporated into intervention and prevention strategies (Eckhardt et al 2013;Whitaker et al 2006).…”