Association Between Intimate Partner Violence and Undernutrition Among Ever Partnered Nepalese Women of Ages 15 to 49 Years

• Activity Number: 83 - Contributed Poster Presentations: Health Policy Statistics Section
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 3, 2020 : 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM
• Sponsor: Health Policy Statistics Section
• Author(s): Janet Nakarmi* and Arun Chaudhary
• Companies: University of Central Arkansas and Abiral Foundation
• Keywords: Intimate partner violence; undernutrition; Nepalese women age 15 to 49; logistic regression; XGBoost; Demographic Health Survey

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is well recognized as human rights violation and a serious global health issue. The primary aim of this study is to explore the relationship between intimate partner violence (IPV) and undernutrition among married or cohabitating Nepalese women of reproductive ages (15 to 49 years). The secondary aim of this study is to compare the strength of association between different IPV forms- physical, sexual and emotional- and women’s nutritional status. A woman’s hemoglobin concentration in blood and body mass index will be used as proxies of her nutritional status. This study’s first hypothesis is that married or cohabitating women who have experienced IPV have higher odds of being underweight and anemic. This study’s second hypothesis is that three IPV forms have variable association with women’s nutritional status.

2016 Nepal Demographic Health Survey data collected from ever partnered women will be used to test this study’s hypotheses. Women’s experience of three IPV forms the year before data collection will be used to ascertain their exposure status. Logistic regression and extreme gradient boosting will be used for statistical analyses.