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MEDIA CENTER Researching Domestic Violence Against Women: Proceed with Caution NEW YORK (14 March 2001) — Researchers and policymakers should proceed cautiously before including questions about domestic violence in surveys designed for other purposes, suggests an article in the March issue of the Population Council's peer-reviewed journal Studies in Family Planning. In the article, Mary Ellsberg and colleagues compare the results of three population-based studies on violence against women in Nicaragua. Two of the studies, undertaken in León and Managua, focused exclusively on violence, while the third—a large-scale national Demographic and Health Survey (DHS)—was designed primarily for other purposes. The three surveys used similar methods for measuring a woman's lifetime exposure to physical violence from a partner. Estimates from the regional studies—a prevalence rate of 52 percent in the León study and 69 percent in the Managua study—were much higher than the 28 percent reported in the DHS. The focused studies are more likely to yield more accurate prevalence estimates of violence for several reasons, the researchers say. The smaller studies placed more emphasis on the interaction between interviewers and respondents and on issues of safety. Because security measures in the DHS were minimal, many women living with abusers may not have felt safe enough to disclose their situation for fear of reprisals. Furthermore, in the DHS, obtaining privacy was especially difficult. Underreporting is widespread "Underreporting is a major threat to validity" in all three studies, the researchers report. "In all three studies, interviewers felt that there were more women who had experienced abuse than were willing to speak about it. They noted that many women 'said no with their mouths, but yes with their eyes.'" In both the León and Managua studies, interviewers had the option of referring women for psychological or medical support, and efforts were made to create a nurturing environment where women felt comfortable and safe discussing their experiences of violence. The DHS was less able to address such concerns. Strategies to improve the quality of data on violence must take into account concerns for the safety of both respondents and interviewers throughout the research process, the authors conclude, noting that interviewing women about violence can be deeply distressing for field-workers, particularly if they themselves have experienced some form of violence. Physical and sexual violence can have an impact on fertility, the researchers say. "Many international studies have found that women who suffer physical or sexual abuse from an intimate partner are more likely than nonabused women to have many children," Ellsberg and colleagues note. Mary Ellsberg is Research Associate and Anna Winkvist is Associate Professor, Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden. Lori Heise is Senior Program Officer, Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), Washington, D.C. Rodolfo Peña is Lecturer in Epidemiology, Department of Preventive Medicine, University of León, León, Nicaragua. Sonia Agurto is Research Associate, International Foundation for Global Challenges, Managua, Nicaragua. Other articles, reports, data, Vol. 32 No. 1, March 2001 Articles: Childbearing in Five Arab Countries, by Eltigani E. Eltigani Is Fertility Declining in Benin? by Virgile Capo-chichi and Fatima Juarez Reports: The Role of Changes in Contraceptive Use in the Decline of Induced Abortion in Turkey, by Pinar Senlet, Siân L. Curtis, Jill Mathis, and Han Raggers Correlates of Sexual Activity and Condom Use among Secondary-school Students in Urban Peru, by Robert J. Magnani, Eric E. Seiber, Emily Zielinski Gutierrez, and Dorina Vereau Sterilization and Financial Penalties Imposed on Registered Peasant Couples, Hebei Province, China, by Rosemary Santana Cooney and Jiali Li Data: Ghana 1998 DHS; Togo 1998 DHS Book Review: Mary Beth Weinberger on Women, Poverty, and Demographic Change, edited by Brígida García For subscription information on Studies in Family Planning, call 212-339-0514, fax 212-755-6052, or email publications@popcouncil.org.
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