The study is the first national study of its kind in South Africa and was conducted by researchers from Harvard School of Public Health, Yale School of Public Health, and the University of Cape Town.
Publishing in The Canadian Medical Journal, researchers used data from the South Africa Stress and Health Study, conducted nationally in South Africa across all provinces from January 2002 to August 2004. The sample consisted of 834 men who reported being married, previously married or in a cohabiting relationship and who provided information on intimate partner violence.
The worldwide rate of women who experience some type of intimate partner violence in their lifetime is between 15% and 75%. This recent study is not only unique because it focuses on South Africa, but also because it is a public health analysis that investigates risk factors for why men commit violent acts towards their intimate female partners. One key factor that increases the risk of perpetrating intimate partner violence is men's exposure to childhood violence. Researchers found that compared to men who did not witness parent violence as children, men who did were about four times as likely to be physically violent against their partners. Additionally, men who were abused as children also had a raised risk of violence against their partners.
Dr. Jacquelyn Campbell and South African colleagues comment in an accompanying editorial that this study cites a lower rate of intimate partner violence than in earlier studies of South Africa.
