ALCOHOL-RELATED DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Angela Taft (with Ingrid Wilson and Kate Graham)
Professor and Director
Judith Lumley Centre
29th October 2014
latrobe.edu.au
CRICOS Provider 00115M
Alcohol-related
domestic violence
=
neglected space
La Trobe University
2
Living with alcohol-related partner violence: what
women say
“…waiting for him to come home from work…this is before the alcohol as well
on a night time and I used to think oh god that’s going to make it worse and
I had to look at his face to see if he was in a happy or a sad mood… and you
shouldn’t have to think like that.’(Janet)
“ He’ll start to kick off and then he’ll realise when he’s in [the] pub and then
he’ll stop and then he’ll calm down…so he can stop when he wants to stop”
(Margaret)
“Its like the Jekyll and Hide thing, isn’t it, they have a drink and they flip”(Kim)
Galvani S. Women’s Perspectives: the Role of Alcohol in Violence Against Women. LAP, 2010
La Trobe University
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Why domestic violence is a public health policy issue
 Disproportionately affects women and their children
 Impact on women’s mental, physical and reproductive health
well documented (WHO, 2013)
 Impact of partner violence perpetration on men’s health and
wellbeing (Fulu et al, UN Multi-country Study, Lancet 2013)
 Major economic impact - $13.6 billion Australian economy
(National Council to Reduce VAWC, 2009)
 Can impact on families over generations
 Most common among young people 18-24 years (ABS 2013)
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Domestic/partner violence and alcohol
- what is the link?
 Not all partner violence is alcohol-related
 Alcohol plays causal contributing role in aggression generally
 Alcohol dependency and heavy episodic (binge drinking)
involved (Foran & O’Leary, 2008)
 Effect stronger for men – gender is important (Giancola et al., 2009)
 The impact of alcohol-related partner violence is more severe,
when one or both partners drink (Abramsky et al., 2011; Graham et al., 2011)
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How prevalent is alcohol-related partner violence?
 Alcohol is implicated in partner violence globally (WHO, 2006, Fulu et
al 2013)
 Alcohol is involved with a third to a half of domestic violence
incidents in Australia
 35% of recent PV incidents alcohol-related (Mouzos and Makkai
2004)
 39.6% females vs 11.4% males alcohol-related physical
abuse in last 12 months (AIHW 2011, 2010 NDSHS)
 In Australia, females over-represented (73%) as victims of
partner murder (Chan and Payne, 2013)
 44% of partner murders alcohol-related, 87% of Aboriginal
partner murders (Deardon and Payne, 2009)
La Trobe University
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Ten year trend - rates of alcohol-related family violence in Victoria
Source: AODstats, Turning Point, 2014
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Ten year trend - rates of alcohol-related family violence for 18-24
year olds in Victoria
Source: AODstats, Turning Point, 2014
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How and where can we intervene in alcohol-related
partner violence? An ecological model
Society
Community
Relationship
Individual
WHO Ecological model for understanding violence against women
(Krug et al., 2002; Bronfenbrenner, 1979)
La Trobe University
9
Society level – what do we know?
Alcohol-pricing and taxation
Alcohol pricing strategies are generally effective in reducing consumption and
related harms
 Few studies have looked at taxation and impact on domestic violence
 Only one American study found price reduction may reduce partner
violence
 Limited evidence base
 Strategic policy:
 We need to know more to target pricing mechanisms
 How perpetrators are affected by alcohol price: type of
alcohol/drinking patterns/forms of partner violence
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Community level - what do we know?
Reducing physical availability decreases consumption and harm by increasing
effort to obtain alcohol
Alcohol sales restriction
 Reduce hours or days of sale
 Shows promise (Aboriginal communities) but no rigorous or clear
evidence
Alcohol outlet density
 Some good Australian evidence of links between packaged liquor (offpremises) & increase in partner violence police incident rates ( 28.6%)
 Two other US studies found associations between outlets and police
reports of domestic violence (inconsistent about type of outlet)
 Evidence is still weak, but worth investigation
La Trobe University
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Relationship level – what do we know?
Couple-based treatment
Aims to reduce alcohol consumption and improve marital relations in couples where one
partner has alcohol problems
 Some evidence for brief interventions reducing both problem
drinking and aggression in dating university couples (but
reductions not linked)
 Other uncontrolled studies showed reductions in clinical
populations (treatment seeking, middle-aged couples, longterm relationships); effects not often sustained
 Overall weak evidence from limited studies
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Individual level - what do we know?
Individual treatment
Aims to reduce alcohol problems in individuals with diagnosed problems
 Standard batterer program compared with batterer and substance use
treatment (motivational interview brief intervention) had effect but lost
over time
 The remaining few intervention studies (using CBT and telephone
motivational interviewing) showed limited evidence, effects not sustained
and unclear if violence reduction mediated by alcohol reduction
 Evidence for individual-based alcohol treatment reducing domestic violence
is limited
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What do we know and what do we still need to know
 Alcohol contributes to violence
 Alcohol increases severity of intimate partner violence
 Certain types of drinking are implicated in partner violence –
i.e., heavy and binge drinking
 Partner violence and binge-drinking common among young
people
 Evidence for what to do at any level is scarce and limited
quality – does not address problem among young people
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Alcohol use ‘one of the
factors most open to
intervention and change’
(Lori Heise in Graham et al., 2008)
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Conclusion
• We need more strategic research – current research focussing
on generalised alcohol policies may not be sensitive enough
• We need:
• Focus on those at risk (young/binge) and heavy drinkers
• Better research quality
• Targeted interventions at all levels of ecological model
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Some practical things we can do
Service provision and safety planning
• Better identification of heavy drinkers and risk to
partners
• Develop specific safety planning for partners of heavy
drinkers
• Better integration between men’s behaviour change
programs and substance use treatment
La Trobe University
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Better research and evaluation
Improve data collection
• Recording of alcohol-related IPV versus non-alcohol-related IPV
Measure prevalence
• Surveys of populations at risk (young people; heavy drinkers)
• Personal Safety Survey – specifically include alcohol use in domestic violence
• More longitudinal research – alcohol risk and perpetration and victimisation
Research and Evaluation
• Evaluations of alcohol policy interventions should include measures of
domestic violence
• Investigate alcohol availability, drinking location and domestic violence
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The impact of alcohol-related domestic violence
What women say
“kicked in the stomach for being pregnant…like his family say they say ‘oh it’s
the drink’…cos he can’t control you. I think it all boils down to control. Like I
say, he’s just like a little [child] bairn having a tantrum.” (Margaret)
“ he knows that I wouldn’t fight back in front of the kids. So I would rather
stand there and take the punch and walk off rather than cause a bigger
scene in front of them and risk upsetting them (Linda).
Galvani S. Women’s Perspectives: the Role of Alcohol in Violence Against Women. LAP, 2010
La Trobe University
19
Thank you
Wilson IM, Graham K, Taft AJ. Alcohol interventions, alcohol policy
and intimate partner violence: a systematic review. BMC Public
Health. 2014;14:881.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2458-14881.pdf
latrobe.edu.au
CRICOS Provider 00115M