Uthman Olalekan A, Lawoko Stephen, Moradi Tahereh
Department of Public Health Sciences, Division of Social Medicine, Epidemiology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
World Health Popul. 2010;12(2):5-17. doi: 10.12927/whp.2010.22007.
Establishing risk factors for intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) is crucial for addressing women's health and development. Acceptance of IPVAW has been suggested as one of the strongest predictors of IPVAWs. The aim of this study was to examine the independent contributions of individual, community, and societal measures of gender inequality in forming women's attitudes toward IPVAW.
We applied multivariable multilevel logistic regression analysis to Demographic and Health Survey data for 120,467 women nested within 7463 communities from 17 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
We found that women whose husband had higher education (odds ratio [OR] =1.06; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.02 to 1.10) and women whose husband had more than one wife (OR=1.14; 95% CI 1.09 to 1.19) were more likely to accept IPVAW than other women. Unemployed women with an unemployed partner were more likely to justify IPVAW than employed women with working partners (OR=1.32; 95% CI 1.08 to 1.61). Both community and societal measures of gender inequality were associated with women's attitudes toward IPVAW, even after controlling for gender inequality at the individual level. There was evidence of clustering of women's attitudes within communities and within countries.
We provide evidence that community and societal forms of gender inequality influence women's attitudes toward IPVAW beyond individual factors. Choices women make are important, but community and society also impose restraints on women's attitudes toward IPVAW. Thus, policies and programs aimed at reducing or eliminating IPVAW must address people, the communities and societies in which they live in order to be successful.
确定针对妇女的亲密伴侣暴力行为（IPVAW）的风险因素对于解决妇女的健康与发展问题至关重要。对IPVAW的接受被认为是IPVAW最有力的预测因素之一。本研究的目的是检验性别不平等的个体、社区和社会层面指标在形成妇女对IPVAW态度方面的独立作用。
我们对撒哈拉以南非洲17个国家7463个社区中120467名妇女的人口与健康调查数据进行了多变量多层次逻辑回归分析。
我们发现，丈夫受过高等教育的妇女（优势比[OR]=1.06；95%置信区间[CI]为1.02至1.10）以及丈夫有多个妻子的妇女（OR=1.14；95%CI为1.09至1.19）比其他妇女更有可能接受IPVAW。与有工作伴侣的就业妇女相比，伴侣无业的失业妇女更有可能为IPVAW辩解（OR=1.32；95%CI为1.08至1.61）。即使在控制了个体层面的性别不平等之后，社区和社会层面的性别不平等指标仍与妇女对IPVAW的态度相关。有证据表明，妇女的态度在社区和国家内部存在聚集现象。
我们提供的证据表明，除个体因素外社区和社会层面的性别不平等形式也会影响妇女对IPVAW的态度。妇女做出的选择很重要，但社区和社会也会对妇女对IPVAW的态度施加限制。因此，旨在减少或消除IPVAW的政策和项目必须针对人们及其生活的社区和社会，才能取得成功。
