The ‘Bruised Series’
‘Bruised I’ is the first work of a series focusing on domestic violence, which appears to have accelerated during COVID-19-related lockdowns. Extra stress in the pandemic has exacerbated the often silent epidemic of intimate partner violence, according to a new University of California, Davis, study.
The paper, “COVID-19, Intimate Partner Violence and Communication Ecologies,” was published in American Behavioral Scientist. Regardt Ferreira and Frederick Buttell, both of Tulane University, and Jennifer First, of University of Tennessee-Knoxville, co-authored the study.
It appears as the pandemic exacerbates the social and livelihood stresses and circumstances, leading to intimate partner violence. COVID-19 has created an environment where victims and aggressors in a relationship, cannot easily separate themselves from each other. The extra stress also can cause mental health issues, increasing individuals’ perceived stress and reactions to stress through violence and other means. Intimate partner violence is defined as physical, emotional, psychological or economic abuse and stalking or sexual harm by a current or former partner or spouse, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Crime statistics indicate that 16 percent of homicides are perpetrated by a partner. Further, the CDC says, 25 percent of women and 10 percent of men experience some form of intimate partner violence in their lifetime.
“Importantly,” Cannon said, “these data do not suggest causality and there is no way to determine if intimate partner violence was present in those relationships prior to the pandemic. What the data do suggest, however, is that experiencing such violence is related to reporting more exposure to stress.”
