Anna-Karin Ivert1,2, Juan Merlo2, Enrique Gracia3. 1. Department of Criminology, Faculty of Health and Society, Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden. 2. Unit of Social Epidemiology, Department of Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden. 3. Department of Social Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain.
Abstract
Background: Intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) is a global and preventable public health problem. Public attitudes, such as victim-blaming, are important for our understanding of differences in the occurrence of IPVAW, as they contribute to its justification. In this paper, we focus on victim-blaming attitudes regarding IPVAW within the EU and we apply multilevel analyses to identify contextual determinants of victim-blaming attitudes. We investigate both the general contextual effect of the country and the specific association between country level of gender equality and individual victim-blaming attitudes, as well as to what extend a possible general contextual effect was explained by county level gender equality. Methods: We analyzed data from 26 800 respondents from 27 member states of the European Union who responded to a survey on public perceptions of domestic violence. We applied multilevel logistic regression analysis and measures of variance (intra-class correlation (ICC)) were calculated, as well as the discriminatory accuracy by calculating the area under the receiver operator characteristic curve. Results: Over and above individual characteristics, about 15% of the individual variance in the propensity for having victim-blaming attitudes was found at the country level, and country level of gender equality did not affect the general contextual effect (i.e. ICC) of the country on individual victim-blaming attitudes. Conclusion: The present study shows that there are important between-country differences in victim-blaming attitudes that cannot be explained by differences in individual-level demographics or in gender equality at the country level. More research on attitudes towards IPVAW is needed.
Background: Intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) is a global and preventable public health problem. Public attitudes, such as victim-blaming, are important for our understanding of differences in the occurrence of IPVAW, as they contribute to its justification. In this paper, we focus on victim-blaming attitudes regarding IPVAW within the EU and we apply multilevel analyses to identify contextual determinants of victim-blaming attitudes. We investigate both the general contextual effect of the country and the specific association between country level of gender equality and individual victim-blaming attitudes, as well as to what extend a possible general contextual effect was explained by county level gender equality. Methods: We analyzed data from 26 800 respondents from 27 member states of the European Union who responded to a survey on public perceptions of domestic violence. We applied multilevel logistic regression analysis and measures of variance (intra-class correlation (ICC)) were calculated, as well as the discriminatory accuracy by calculating the area under the receiver operator characteristic curve. Results: Over and above individual characteristics, about 15% of the individual variance in the propensity for having victim-blaming attitudes was found at the country level, and country level of gender equality did not affect the general contextual effect (i.e. ICC) of the country on individual victim-blaming attitudes. Conclusion: The present study shows that there are important between-country differences in victim-blaming attitudes that cannot be explained by differences in individual-level demographics or in gender equality at the country level. More research on attitudes towards IPVAW is needed.
Authors: Andrés Sánchez-Prada; Carmen Delgado-Alvarez; Esperanza Bosch-Fiol; Virginia Ferreiro-Basurto; Victoria A Ferrer-Perez Journal: Int J Environ Res Public Health Date: 2020-08-20 Impact factor: 3.390
Authors: Andrés Sánchez-Prada; Carmen Delgado-Alvarez; Esperanza Bosch-Fiol; Virginia Ferreiro-Basurto; Victoria A Ferrer-Perez Journal: PLoS One Date: 2020-11-03 Impact factor: 3.240