A meta-analysis of the association between intimate partner violence and age disparity in sub-Saharan Africa

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT : Intimate partner violence (IPV) is the most common form of violence against womenand a worldwide human rights and public health problem. IPV against women can beemotional, physical, and sexual in nature. The current body of research has identifiedmultiple risk factors for IPV including age disparity between women and their partners.Studies that have looked at age disparity as a risk factor of IPV show conflictingresults. We conducted a meta-analysis to examine the association between IPV againstwomen experienced within 12 months before the survey and age disparity using surveydata from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) collected in 21 sub-Saharan Africancountries. Two-stage sample weights were proportionally used to represent the differentcountries. The age disparity was divided into two groups: relationships where the agedifference (age of the male partner minus age of the woman) was less than five yearsand those where the age difference was five or more years. Three generalized linearmodels were used to estimate relative risk (RR) of the association between IPV and agedisparity. These models were: modified Poisson regression, logistic regression modelwhere RR was estimated from odds ratio, and log-binomial model. Modified Poissonregression proved to be a better model after comparing the three models using DHSdata. The RR from modified Poisson regression model were pooled in a meta-analysis.A random-effects model was used in the meta-analyses. We found that weighted relativerisk averages (WRRAs) from the meta-analysis were less than 1, and significant at alpha = 0.05 level for less severe and severe physical violence, which suggest thathaving an older partner has a protective effect against physical IPV. This study also indicateshigh country heterogeneity. For instance, results from Burkina Faso, and SierraLeone indicated that having an older partner is protective against emotional and less severeIPV, while the results show that having an older partner puts a woman at a higherrisk of experiencing emotional and less severe IPV in Kenya. We also calculated theprevalence of IPV against women and found that there is high prevalence of IPV againstwomen in sub-Saharan Africa. In conclusion, this study shows an association betweenIPV and age disparity but the association is country dependent. We speculate that heterogeneitiesin underlying socio-cultural and economic histories and current realitiesexplain dependence. Therefore, IPV prevention programmes should be country dependentwhen considering age disparity as a risk factor for IPV.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University