Ethical Challenges of Randomized Violence Intervention Trials: Examining the SHARE intervention in Rakai, Uganda.

ObjectiveWe identify complexities encountered, including unanticipated crossover between trial arms and inadequate 'standard of care' violence services, during a cluster randomized trial (CRT) of a community-level intimate partner violence (IPV) and HIV prevention intervention in Uganda.MethodsConcepts in public health ethics - beneficence, social value of research, fairness, standard of care, and researcher responsibilities for post-trial benefits - are used to critically reflect on lessons learned and guide discussion on practical and ethical challenges of violence intervention CRTs.ResultsExisting ethical guidelines provide incomplete guidance for responding to unexpected crossover in CRTs providing IPV services. We struggled to balance duty of care with upholding trial integrity, and identifying and providing appropriate standard of care. While we ultimately offered short-term IPV services to controls, we faced additional challenges related to sustaining services beyond the 'short-term' and post-trial.ConclusionStudies evaluating community-level violence interventions, including those combined with HIV reduction strategies, are limited yet critical for developing evidence-based approaches for effectively preventing IPV. Although CRTs are a promising design, further guidance is needed to implement trials that avoid introducing tensions between validity of findings, researchers' responsibilities to protect participants, and equitable distribution of CRT benefits

Building Effective Responses: An Independent Review of Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence Services in Wales

Independent researchers from the Connect Centre for International Research on Interpersonal Violence based in the School of Social Work at the University of Central Lancashire were commissioned by the Welsh Government in 2013 to conduct research into violence against women, domestic abuse and sexual violence services in Wales. The research aimed to inform the forthcoming Ending Violence Against Women and Domestic Abuse (Wales) Bill, implementation of the legislation and future policy more generally, as well as informing future funding decisions. The remit of the review covers: Domestic abuse, including that experienced in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) relationships and elder abuse. Violence against women, including female genital mutilation (FGM), forced marriage and honour-based violence. Sexual violence including rape, sexual assault and harassment Sexual exploitation including prostitution and trafficking1 for sexual purposes. Services for women and men who are victims or perpetrators of violence against women, domestic abuse or sexual violence. The review does not encompass criminal justice services or housing services and, with the exception of prevention work, services for children and young people in Wales were also excluded from this study

Child poly-victimization and Intimate Partner Violence in Wuhan, China

Session G4 - Panel 47: Family Violence Poly-Victimization in ChinaThis study is to examine the prevalence and correlates of child poly-victimization, and to investigate if IPV is a factor associated with child poly-victimization in a cohort of Chinese families. Using a multi-stage stratified sampling, about 1,000 households with children aged 0-17 were randomly sampled in the Wuhan city. Of each family, one of the parents or guardians will be invited to participate in the study. The Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire (JVQ) and the Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2) were employed as the major tools for measuring child victimization and IPV respectively. The data collection is still in progress and will be completed in June 2010. The prevalence rate of and the risk factors for child poly-victimization in Wuhan, China will be analyzed. Holding an assumption that inter-parental violence negatively impacts the family system, this study hypothesizes that children in families with IPV are more likely to experience poly-victimization compared with those whose parents are nonviolent. Thus, IPV as a factor associated with child polyvictimization will be tested using regression analyses. The findings will implicate that identification of child victims should be extended to cover multiple types of victimization, and thus screening of family violence should involve all family members.postprin

Preventing and responding to gender-based violence in middle and low-income countries : a global review and analysis

Worldwide, patterns of violence against women differ markedly from violence against men. For example, women are more likely than men to be sexually assaulted or killed by someone they know. The United Nations has defined violence against women as"gender-based"violence, to acknowledge that such violence is rooted in gender inequality and is often tolerated and condoned by laws, institutions, and community norms. Violence against women is not only a profound violation of human rights, but also a costly impediment to a country's national development. While gender-based violence occurs in many forms throughout the life cycle, this review focuses on two of the most common types-physical intimate partner violence and sexual violence by any perpetrator. Unfortunately, the knowledge base about effective initiatives to prevent and respond to gender-based violence is relatively limited. Few approaches have been rigorously evaluated, even in high-income countries. And such evaluations involve numerous methodological challenges. Nonetheless, the authors review what is known about more and less effective-or at least promising-approaches to prevent and respond to gender-based violence. They present definitions, recent statistics, health consequences, costs, and risk factors of gender-based violence. The authors analyze good practice initiatives in the justice, health, and education sectors, as well as multisectoral approaches. For each of these sectors, they examine initiatives that have addressed laws and policies, institutional reforms, community mobilization, and individual behavior change strategies. Finally, the authors identify priorities for future research and action, including funding research on the health and socioeconomic costs of violence against women, encouraging science-based program evaluations, disseminating evaluation results across countries, promoting investment in effective prevention and treatment initiatives, and encouraging public-private partnerships.

A study of children’s bullying victimization in Xi’an: prevalence, risk factors, and correlation with family violence

Session G4 - Panel 47: Family Violence Poly-Victimization in ChinaOBJECTIVE: Despite there is evidence supporting a substantial overlap between family violence and bullying victimization (Baldry, 2003; Shields & Cicchetti, 2001), few studies have been conducted to examine the co-occurrence or correlation between these two kinds of child victimization. This study aims to present an estimate of prevalence and risk factors of bullying victimization in a wide range of settings (school, street, and internet) and examine its association with family violence victimization in a cohort of Chinese children in Xi’an. METHOD: Using a three-stage stratified sampling design, a total of 2000 students were randomly selected from 24 schools in 3 districts (from both urban and rural areas) in Xi’an, China. Questionnaires were self-administrated by children subjects. The Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire (JVQ) and Relational Aggression Scale were used as measures for direct and relational bullying victimization. Family violence includes four types: child abuse, witnessing spouse violence, elder abuse, and in-law conflict. RESULTS: The prevalence rate and the pattern of child bullying victimization will be computed and reported. The correlation between bullying victimization and family violence will be examined by regression analyses. CONCLUSION: The patterns of child bullying victimization occurred in different settings will be compared and discussed.postprin

Study of family violence poly-victimization in China: design and preliminary findings

Session G4 - Panel 47: Family Violence Poly-Victimization in ChinaThe population survey adopts a combined approach in using school and household-based approaches. The school-based approach is more appropriate to gather information from children aged 15 – 17 to estimate the prevalence of child victimization experienced by them. The household-based approach, with both children aged 15 – 17 and parents with children aged below 18 were interviewed, is adopted. The household approach is the only viable option for interviewing parents and to collect information on child victimization experienced by children under age 15. The primary objective of this approach is to collect data to better estimate of prevalence rates of CSA and child victimization experienced by children under age 15, and to test a comprehensive profile of individual and family risk factors correlating to CSA and child victimization. From the school survey, a cohort of about 13,000 secondary students aged 15-17 will be interviewed in schools. From the household survey, a cohort of about 5,000 parents or guardians of children aged 0 – 17 and about 2,000 young persons aged 15 – 17 drawn from large representative samples from households in Hong Kong and 5 Mainland provinces will be interviewed face-to-face by trained interviewers. Data collection will be completed in June, 2010. Prevalence rates of IPV, elder abuse, in-law violence and child poly-victimization will be presented.postprin

Child poly-victimization in Hong Kong

Session A1 - Panel 61: Youth Victimization in 3 Countries Using the NatSCEV Assessment ModelThis study is to examine the prevalence and correlates of child poly-victimization in a cohort of Chinese families in Hong Kong. The study is collecting epidemiological data through representative school and household surveys. From the school survey, a cohort of about 6,000 secondary students aged 15-17 will be interviewed in schools. From the household survey, a cohort of about 2,500 parents or guardians of children aged 0 – 17 and about 1,000 young persons aged 15 – 17 drawn from large representative samples from households in Hong Kong will be interviewed at home. The Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire (JVQ) is employed as the major tool for measuring child victimization. The data collection is still in progress and will be completed in June 2010.The prevalence rate of and the risk factors for child poly-victimization collected through the school and household surveys will be analyzed and compared. The findings will also be compared with data collected in US and UK. Universal and culture-specific factors will be identified. The findings will implicate that identification of child victims using JVQ in different cultures.postprin

The Mediating Role of Emotion Dysregulation in the Association Between Intimate Partner Victimization Types and Symptoms of Depression in Young Hispanic Women

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is defined as the abuse or aggression that occurs in a close relationship. Statistics show that the most prevalent types of IPV are psychological, physical, and sexual. In the U.S. 1 in 4 women (24.4%, or 29.2 million) are victims of IPV before the age of 25. Minorities and socioeconomically disadvantaged women are most likely to experience it. Depression, among others, is one of the harmful consequences resulting from IPV victimization. The present study focuses on the role of emotion dysregulation in the association between IPV and depression. It was hypothesized that emotion dysregulation mediates the association between IPV and depression. The sample studied in the present study consisted of (N = 892) Hispanic college undergraduate females attending the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. The age range was 18 to 29 years old. After running a parallel mediation model and ruling out possible covariates, it was found that IPV subtype—psychological—leads to variance in symptoms of depression through emotion regulation subscale, namely, lack of access to emotion regulation strategies for feeling better when distressed, that IPV subtypes—physical and sexual IPV—lead to variance in symptoms of depression through emotion regulation subscales, namely, lack of clarity and lack of access to emotion regulation strategies for feeling better when distressed, and that even when childhood maltreatment (CM) was present, sexual IPV leads to variance in symptoms of depression through emotion dysregulation subscales, namely, lack of clarity and lack of access to emotion regulation strategies for feeling better when distressed. Further studies with Hispanic samples in other locations should be conducted as means to compare the findings across groups that contribute to the creation and implementation of effective treatments and helpful resources

Toward a transformed system to address child abuse and family violence in New Zealand

Executive Summary Introduction The Glenn Inquiry (TGI) has contracted Institute of Environmental Science and Research Limited (ESR) to bring together the relevant experience and expertise to collaboratively model a transformed system to address child abuse and neglect (CAN) and family violence (FV) in New Zealand. Our approach We have treated the task of reducing FV and CAN as a ‘wicked problem’1; that is, reducing FV and CAN is a problem that cannot be solved once and for all, and is not a matter of simply applying expert knowledge. The methods used in this project have been chosen because they are appropriate for working with wicked problems: stakeholder engagement, systems thinking and inter-disciplinary analysis. In this report, we refer to both CAN and FV. We recognise that, for some purposes, dealing with CAN requires particular strategies and treatment; however, the purpose of this report is to develop a transformed system that will reduce both CAN and other forms of FV. While the underlying causes of CAN and other FV may be considered independently, and some responses to each form of abuse will need to be particular, this report proposes a wider system of responses that will enable targeted interventions for each form of abuse. We use the term ‘family violence’ in this report in the sense it has come to be understood in Aotearoa, and is used in Te Rito: New Zealand Family Violence Prevention Strategy. In this use, FV includes intimate partner violence, child abuse and neglect, elder abuse, inter-sibling abuse and parental abuse. The project consisted of four work-streams: A review of the international and national literature on what would constitute a high performing system to address CAN and FV, including a review of New Zealand’s current approach with a focus on government legalisation, policies and initiatives; Qualitative modelling of the system dynamics associated with the existing way in which New Zealand has responded to CAN and FV; A secondary (sociological) analysis of suggestions for system improvement from the People’s Report; and, Developing a systemic model of a transformed system through collaborative workshops with sector experts