Predictors of Violence Against Women in Costa Rica

PRESENTATION TYPE: Individual Paper Presentation

THEME: Epidemiology and Etiology

INTRODUCTION: Violence against women (VAW) is a worldwide public health problem that affects women regardless their age, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. VAW is a complex issue because it is influenced by sociocultural factors, including culture, religion, policies, and socioeconomic conditions, which interact and shape the experiences of violence. However, the nature of these interactions varies across countries. In Costa Rica, there is a lack of understanding about the role of the contextual and socioeconomic factors surrounding the experiences of VAW. Therefore, this study extends the understanding of VAW in the country by exploring the relationships among several of these factors.

METHODS: This innovate study was a secondary data analysis from police reports about VAW events that occurred in the country capital (San José) from January to July 2014. Reports contained information about the event (e.g., date, time, setting where the aggression took place), perpetrator and survivor characteristics (e.g., age, gender, and marital relationship). Reports were directly entered into the National Crime System by the police officer attending to the incident. Data were exported into SPSS version 22. 467 events related to VAW were identified and included in the final analysis. A multinominal logistic regression was conducted to assess the predictive ability of socioeconomic and contextual factors on reports of abuse.

RESULTS: Episodes of VAW were less likely to occur on Wednesday (AOR=-.24, p=.001) compared to the rest of the days of the week. While, VAW was more likely to take place in January (AOR=1.1, p=.038) and on Friday (AOR=.95, p=.001) than the rest of the dates. Likewise, women were less likely to report incidents that occurred between 3:00am and 8:00am (AOR=-.81, p=.04). Regarding location, VAW events were more likely to occur in well-known violent neighborhoods (AOR=.95, p=.001) and at the victim’s household (AOR=.95, p=.001). Analysis also confirmed that the effect of these factors remained even after controlling for age, nationality, marital relationship, and perpetrator gender.

CONCLUSION: These first of his kind findings contribute to enhance our understanding of the association between contextual factors and VAW in Costa Rica. Initiatives targeting VAW prevention should consider the contextual factors surrounding this problem, such as location and date.