Community Exposure to Violent Conflict Increases the Risk of Intimate Partner Violence in Rwanda

Mark Janko, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Shelah S. Bloom, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
John Spencer, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a concern in every country in the world. While studies have explored the general characteristics that put women at risk for IPV, little work on community risk factors or the spaital distribution of IPV exists. This study employs spatial methods to test a hypothesis that community exposure to long-term violent conflict increases individual risk of IPV. Data on IPV were obtained from the domestic violence module of the 2010 Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey, while violent conflict data came from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset. Results indicated that community exposure to long-term violent conflict significantly increased individual risk of IPV, while spatial cluster analysis showed that there are additional contextual risk factors along the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. GBV program managers should consider this risk factor and IPV's spatial distribution when determining where to target interventions.