Neighborhood disadvantage and social cohesion as contextual determinants of inequalities in intimate partner violence risk across city neighborhoods

Abstract

This study analyzed neighborhood disadvantage and collective efficacy as contextual determinants of inequalities in intimate partner violence (IPV) risk across city neighborhoods. A small-area ecological study was conducted in a medium-size South European city (Valencia, Spain). Geocoded data on IPV against women cases with an associated protection order between 2021 and 2023 (N = 2060) were used. Data were aggregated at the census block group level that were used as neighborhood units (N = 552). As covariates, the study included both census-based compositional and contextual indicators of neighborhood disadvantage (i.e., education, income, immigrant concentration, residential instability, and social disorder and criminality), and neighborhood-level indicators of collective efficacy (i.e., social cohesion and informal social control of IPV). We used a Bayesian spatial modeling and disease mapping approach to estimate and map small-area variations in IPV risk. Results showed that the relative risk of IPV was higher in neighborhoods characterized by low income and education, high levels of immigrant concentration, and high levels of disorder and crime. In neighborhoods low in social cohesion the relative risk of IPV was also higher than the city average. Thus, social cohesion emerged as a neighborhood-level protective factor for IPV risk. Neighborhood informal social control of IPV was not found to be relevant to the model. This study provides evidence that neighborhood-level social cohesion is an important spatially structured contextual factor explaining inequalities in IPV risk across city areas and, therefore, becomes an important target for neighborhood-level interventions to prevent the excess risk of IPV.