Health Correlates Associated with Women’s and Men’s Experiences of Intimate Partner Violence in Canada

Donna L. Ansara, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

While the negative health consequences of intimate partner violence (IPV) are well documented, most research has focused on physical violence. However, some researchers argue that failure to consider the extent of coercive control obscures our understanding of the impact of IPV. This study used latent class analysis (LCA) to examine the health consequences associated with different patterns of physical violence, sexual coercion, psychological abuse, and controlling behavior in a Canadian population-based sample of over 15,000 respondents. The findings revealed that experiencing any pattern of physical or non-physical abuse is associated with a range of negative health experiences for both women and men. However, results also documented the increasingly negative effects of IPV for those experiencing more severe patterns of violence and control. This finding was particularly strong for women. These results suggest that the health consequences of IPV is influenced by gender and by the nature of the abuse experienced.