Women’s Health
The association between infertility and intimate partner violence among HIV-negative women in low- and middle-income countries Cheyu Zhang* Cheyu Zhang Astha Ramaiya Julia Mandeville Jhumka Gupta
Introduction: Male-perpetrated intimate partner violence (IPV) against women affects one-third of women around the world. This is especially an issue in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where a prevalence of 37% was observed. Infertility and childlessness may be factors that influence IPV experiences among women. This paper aims to examine whether women’s infertility and childlessness are associated with IPV experience among HIV-negative women in LMICs.
Methods: Nationally representative Demographic Health Survey (DHS) data from 16 countries (14 from Sub-Saharan Africa) were used. Women aged 20-49 who tested HIV-negative were included in the analysis to minimize reverse causality. Logistic regressions accounting for the survey design factors and weights were used to compare lifetime and past-year IPV experiences (including any IPV, physical IPV, sexual IPV, and psychological IPV) among women who were determined infertile, women with no child, and women with children.
Results: Among all 98,833 women in the study, 41.9% had ever experienced any type of IPV in their lifetime, and 30.0% experienced IPV in the past year. The vast majority of women in this analysis had at least one live birth. Differences in IPV experiences were not significant or borderline significant among infertile women (Lifetime: aOR=0.98, 95%CI 0.75-1.27; Past-year: aOR=0.96, 95%CI 0.72-1.28) and women without children (Lifetime: aOR= 0.78, 95%CI 0.64-0.95; Past-year: aOR=0.82, 95%CI 0.67-1.01) compared to women with children.
Conclusion: The current study showed that the prevalence of male-perpetrated IPV against women was high (41.9% lifetime and 30.0% past-year) among women 20-49 years old in 16 low- and middle-income countries, irrespective of whether they had/did not have children. The results demonstrate the importance of IPV prevention interventions to be inclusive of women with infertility and women without children. Future research is needed to further understand the association between women’s infertility and IPV experiences.