Barely a week passes without a media report of the suffering or tragic death of a woman at the hands of a partner. Typically, these accounts focus on the individuals involved. While important, in isolation, such a focus can belie the fact intimate partner violence is a wider social problem, obscuring both the factors contributing to it and opportunities to prevent it.
A study being launched today by Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety confirms the serious impacts of intimate partner violence. The analysis, undertaken by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, provides estimates of the impact of intimate partner violence on women’s health.
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Data from the Personal Safety Survey, Australia’s most reliable violence prevalence survey, was used as a key input.
Since the age of 15, one in four women in Australia have experienced at least one incident of violence by a partner. This includes violence perpetrated by a live-in partner as well as boyfriends, girlfriends or dates. This is based on a definition of violence, used by the Personal Safety Survey, which includes physical and sexual assault, as well as face-to-face threats the victim believed were likely and able to be carried out.
Listen: We chat to former Australian of the year and domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty. Post continues after audio.
When emotional abuse by a live-in partner is included, (defined as controlling behaviours aimed at causing fear or emotional harm), it is estimated one in three women have experienced violence or abuse by an intimate partner.
Serious impacts on women’s health.
Drawing on Australian and international studies, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found an association between women experiencing partner violence and a wide range of health impacts. Particularly compelling evidence was found linking partner violence to:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Suicide and self-inflicted injuries
- Alcohol use disorders
- Homicide and violence
- Early pregnancy loss. (Post continues after gallery.)
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Mental health services in Australia
Beyond BlueServices: Beyond Blue offers immediate support services through a help line, online web chats and email. They also offer information on mental health conditions for both people who are affected by them, as well as their families and friends. Help line: 1300 22 4636 Website: www.beyondblue.org.au HeadspaceServices: Headspace is the National Youth Mental Health Foundation. If you're 12-25, you can get health advice, support and information from headspace. Headspace has more than 70 centres across Australia. Website: www.headspace.org.au Sane AustraliaServices: Sane offers people affected by mental illness with support training and education. Their award-winning educational resources include guidebooks and ebooks, fact sheets, podcasts, videos, guidelines for health professionals, and magazine 'SANE News'. Help line: 1800 18 7263 Website: www.sane.org Black Dog InstituteServices: The Black Dog Institute is dedicated to improving the lives of people affected by mood disorders through their high quality translational research, clinical expertise and national education programs. Phone: (02) 9382 2991 Website: www.blackdoginstitute.org.au LifelineServices: Lifeline offers 24/7 crisis support and suicide prevention services. You can contact Lifeline through their help line and through an online chat service. Help line: 13 11 14 Website: www.lifeline.org.au The Butterfly Foundation
These factors were used in calculating the burden of disease of partner violence.
The burden of disease is a calculation of the impact of particular diseases and risk factors on an entire population. It is a measure of both fatal and non-fatal health impacts, which take into account the severity and duration of health conditions. (Post continues after gallery.)
Mental health services in Australia
The study found partner violence was among the top ten risk factors contributing to disease burden among all adult women, regardless of whether partner violence was defined broadly (violence by both live-in and non-live-in partners, and emotional abuse by live-in partners) or narrowly (only physical and sexual violence in live-in relationships).
Among women 18 to 44 years, it was the biggest single risk factor when violence in all intimate relationships was included, bigger than smoking, alcohol use or being overweight or obese. When considering only violence by live-in partners, in this age group, partner violence ranked second only to alcohol use.
The study found there had been no change in the burden since 2003.
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Burden even larger for Indigenous women.
Physical and sexual partner violence is the leading risk factor contributing to disease burden in Indigenous women aged 18 to 44 years. The rates of burden of physical and sexual violence in both cohabiting and non-cohabiting relationships were compared between Indigenous and non-Indigenous women. Rates for Indigenous women were:
- 6.3 times greater among women 18-44 years; and
- 5.3 times greater among women of all ages.
This burden was the leading contributor to the gap in burden between Indigenous and non-Indigenous women aged 18 to 44; and the sixth largest contributor to the gap among women of all ages.
A preventable burden.
Front-line services, such as the police, women’s refuges and counselling and support services play a vital role, reducing exposure to violence and its health consequences by helping women to secure safety, supporting their recovery, and holding men who use violence accountable. Recent inquiries in Victoria and Queensland show that although such services have improved, much more needs to be done.
Another effective way to reduce the burden is to prevent “new cases” of partner violence, by tackling its underlying causes. These are increasingly well understood, along with the means to address them.
Among these factors is inequality between men and women, an influence made particularly potent when coupled with poverty, social exclusion and other forms of discrimination.
A sustained, coordinated approach is needed which extends beyond affected individuals, and engages a wide range of sectors – not just front-line services - to shift social, community and organisational norms, practices and policies known to increase the likelihood of violence. A similar approach, often referred to as a public health approach, has been used very successfully in Australia to tackle other prevalent risk factors such as tobacco use and road safety hazards.
Dr Peta Cox, Senior Research Officer for ANROWS co-authored this article. Dr Cox will participate on the expert panel at the launch of the study on 1 November 2016.
For 24-hour crisis support and counselling, please call the national domestic violence hotline on 18000 RESPECT (1800 737 732) or visit the website at 1800respect.org.au.
Image: iStock.
Top Comments
What I find alarming and as far as I can tell it hasn't really occurred - or very little... Why are there not more support services for men? What I mean is that these people are obviously doing this for a reason... From my (fairly limited) studies and research the overwhelming majority of perpetrators of DV have either a drug or alcohol problem or a history of similar abuse themselves - or a mixture...
There are a lot of services to help the women AFTER the fact but why not implement services before to try to prevent it all together? Make rehabs easier to access, psychological services, anger management etc etc etc I know these services do exist but they are extremely difficult to get into and even then can be very expensive
Sure it wouldn't stop or prevent all instances but it seems to me similar things keep getting implemented then are confused as to why nothing changes!
I completely agree with you, and was thinking the same thing as I read this article. Men are so often overlooked when it comes to domestic violence, and there is nowhere for them to go either. I'm sick of all these DV stuff only being from the perspective of the women, when it should be focused on ending ALL DV.
I think something else that is rarely mentioned but is related is the lack of privacy rights any of us (women and men) have, with the explosion of the internet it makes it virtually impossible for anyone being stalked or trying to escape a violent partner or stalker to not be found.
Of course you shouldn't have to hide but the point is that unfortunately that is the case for some people and it was always difficult to do in the past but it is a hundred times for difficult nowadays. Even if you yourself don't go on social media, other people post your details, often without your knowledge or permission. Also even government agencies post information on the internet. For instance I myself wrote a private letter (via snail mail) the Australian Electoral Commission, which they scanned in and put it on their website. I have not been able to get it removed from their site (they have hundreds of personal letters scanned into their site). Pretty appalling behaviour from a government agency, and I guess if someone decides to stalk me or anyone else on their site the AEC have made it nice and easy for them. I prefer not to post a link as I don't want my letter found, but it really upsets me that I, who has no social media presence, has had my privacy invaded in this way by a government organisation of all things!
This kind of behaviour I would not be that surprised from private individuals or companies, but if the AEC can't be trusted to keep private information private then I guess the lesson is here what other government agencies are doing the same, which I guess means that eventually most people will end up being burned and eventually will stop trusting government altogether and start lying whenever they deal with them, which will mean that statistics gathered by the government will be useless as most people will be wary enough to supply false information.
And some people will end up dying because, like myself they won't realise till years after the event that their personal letter was scanned in to a website, but their stalker will figure this out and track them down.
So I believe privacy is the elephant in the room that is a part contributor to the deaths of so many people, though of course I am not suggesting this is by any means the only reason, but I think it is something that we need to start talking about as well if we want to lower the death toll. It is just one factor in many, but the only factor that doesn't seem to be discussed.