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Original research
Impact of Peru’s women’s emergency centres on the reporting of physical, psychological and sexual intimate partner violence
  1. Renzo Calderon-Anyosa1,2,3,
  2. Alissa Koski2,4,
  3. Cesar Carcamo3,
  4. Patricia J Garcia3,
  5. Arijit Nandi2,4,
  6. Jay Kaufman2
  1. 1Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  2. 2Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
  3. 3School of Public Health, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Lima District, Peru
  4. 4Department of Equity, Ethics, and Policy, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
  1. Correspondence to Dr Renzo Calderon-Anyosa; renzo.calderon.a{at}gmail.com

Abstract

Background Violence against women is a global problem with serious consequences. In response, Peru established women’s emergency centres or Centros de Emergencia Mujer (CEMs) in 1999, offering support services like psychological and legal counselling for women suffering from violence. CEMs also implemented preventive activities such as educational programmes and community outreach to prevent domestic violence. This study aimed to assess the impact of CEMs on physical, psychological and sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) in Peru.

Methods We conducted a secondary analysis of the Peru Demographic and Health Surveys’ domestic violence module, from 2004, the first year of available data, to 2016. We use a difference-in-differences approach with the Callaway and Sant'Anna estimator to account for the staggered introduction of CEMs across districts.

Results Our findings showed that CEMs lead to an average increase of 3.00 percentage points (pp) (95% CI: 0.61 to 5.39) in the probability of reporting any form of physical, psychological or sexual IPV, primarily driven by psychological violence reporting (3.07 pp, 95 %CI: 0.60 to 5.55). Analyses of the effect of CEMs on physical and sexual violence were inconclusive but indicate that the CEMs did not have large impacts on these forms of violence.

Discussion CEMs may have increased the reporting mainly of psychological IPV to the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS). This increase in psychological IPV could be due to heightened sensitisation, leading to more individuals reporting to the DHS than before, or to a rise in incidence stemming from unaddressed root causes of violence or potential backlash effects. Our results are inconclusive regarding the impact of CEMs in IPV incidence and highlight the need to refine CEM preventive services and adopt comprehensive strategies to combat and to measure the impact of interventions in IPV. Further research is essential to understand the complexities of IPV prevention and measurement to continuously monitor the progress of such interventions.

  • VIOLENCE
  • PUBLIC HEALTH
  • EPIDEMIOLOGY
  • POLICY ANALYSIS

Data availability statement

Data are available in a public, open access repository. https://proyectos.inei.gob.pe/endes/

https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2024-222140

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    Data availability statement

    Data are available in a public, open access repository. https://proyectos.inei.gob.pe/endes/

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors RC-A conceptualised the study, designed the research framework, conducted data analysis and drafted the manuscript. He is the guarantor of the study and is responsible for the overall content. AK contributed to the methodological approach, advised on analytical strategies and provided critical revisions to the manuscript. CC assisted with data acquisition, data management and statistical analysis. PJG provided expertise on public health policy implications and contextualised the findings within the Peruvian healthcare system. AN contributed to the interpretation of results, ensuring methodological rigour and alignment with causal inference principles. JK provided oversight on epidemiological methods, contributed to the discussion of findings and critically reviewed the manuscript for clarity and coherence.

    • Funding RC-A was supported for the present manuscript by the Tomlinson Doctoral Fellowship, McGill University and from the Fonds de recherche du Québec.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.