Intimate Partner Violence in Nigeria: Do Community and State Characteristics Matter?

Anastasia J. Gage, Tulane University
Nicholas Thomas, Tulane University

Intimate partner violence is increasing recognized as a global social and public health problem. Although there are well established studies identifying individual and family-level risk factors for intimate partner violence, the role of neighborhood and "larger area" factors have been relatively ignored. The current paper examines the extent to which community and state characteristics are associated with the risk of reported intimate partner violence in the past 12 months among currently married women in Nigeria. The analysis is based on the 2008 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey and utilizes an ecological framework and three-level logistic regression models to examine: (a) whether state-level factors matter at all for women’s risk of violence victimization, and (b) whether different community and state characteristics have differential associations with intimate partner violence among different subgroups of women. Implications for intimate partner violence interventions and measurement are discussed.