(Press-News.org) (APRIL 1, 2021) -The pandemic has exacerbated risk factors for gender-based violence, such as unemployment and financial strain, substance use, isolation, depression anxiety, and general stress, according to the American Psychological Association. That's inspired The University of Texas at San Antonio criminology and criminal justice professor Kellie Lynch, along with professor TK Logan from the University of Kentucky, to work with the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence on a national survey to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the dynamics of gender-based violence and the experiences of those serving victims of gender-based violence.
"The consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are far-reaching and we still have much to learn about how this pandemic has impacted and will continue to impact gender-based violence," said Lynch. "Gender-based violence, such as intimate partner violence, child abuse, sexual assault and human trafficking, are crimes that thrive on survivor isolation. The isolation resulting from this pandemic, coupled with financial strain and a myriad of mental health issues experienced by many, creates a perfect storm to enhance the occurrence of gender-based violence."
Many victim and criminal justice services have been operating in a limited capacity, if at all, during the pandemic. "The pandemic has forced agencies to quickly adapt their policies and/or manage with limited resources in these unprecedented times. One critical step in helping victim service agencies become better equipped to serve survivors is to document the challenges that agencies face so they can prioritize their needs for future service" said Lynch.
Professionals who serve survivors of gender-based violence across the United States were recruited to complete the online survey between September and December 2020. It consisted of questions across a variety of areas, including the impact of the pandemic on forms of gender-based violence, risks and challenges for survivors, challenges for agencies, interactions with law enforcement, innovations for agencies in going forward and survey respondent information.
In the open-ended responses section of the survey, respondents highlighted a numerous list of barriers to serving survivors, such as maintaining staff and victim health/safety, statewide mandates restricting access to services, limited resources, shelter capacity and reduced criminal justice system operations.
The survey findings indicated that most respondents believed Intimate Partner Violence (IPV), child abuse and sexual assault have increased during the pandemic.
"The results revealed strong concerns about financial insecurity for survivors and their families. In particular, the ability to access safe housing is a major concern as many shelters are operating at limited capacity and homelessness continues to rise in the U.S. The impact of continued isolation on mental health and child wellness are also key issues that we must grapple with as we continue to move toward some version of normal," Lynch added.
The study also found that survivors face immense barriers to seeking help during the pandemic, such as concerns for their health and safety, being closely monitored at home by an abuser, and a lack of knowledge of if and how agencies are providing services during these times.
Additionally, nearly 40% of respondents reported that gun sales have increased in their community since the start of the pandemic and about 50% of respondents reported that abusers threatening to shoot survivors has become a bigger problem since the start of the pandemic.
"The potential risk posed by increased access to firearms in volatile situations cannot be overlooked as an abusive partner's access to a firearm dramatically increases the risk of domestic fatality. Further, there are broader implications for public safety as a recent analysis by Bloomberg found that 60% of U.S. mass shootings in the last six years were committed by men with a history of domestic violence or began as domestic-related attacks."
Findings are coupled with the fact that about two-thirds of respondents reported that abusers have interfered with survivors' work/employment as a control tactic during the pandemic.
The survey also demonstrates that survivor populations are at greater risk during the pandemic. For example, in the case of children, respondents assessed, "They are at an increased risk during the pandemic as many of them live with their abusers or are continuously exposed due to having to function in all aspects from home. There is also a decrease in the access to needs/resources that were being provided from schools."
Among the responses, 25% reported that law enforcement's response to meeting the needs of survivors worsened during the pandemic.
The researcher's concluded the efforts to gather this information is to highlight areas of high concern and innovations to improve services going forward and identify the challenges that victim service agencies face during a global pandemic and perceptions of the impact the pandemic has had on the dynamics of gender-based violence.
"This study was an initial step in documenting the resiliency of victim service agencies and highlights the creativity, determination, and passion of agency staff to navigate this pandemic" Lynch concluded. "These results can be used to inform strategies and allow coordinated plans for providing services to survivors as this pandemic continues and in future emergencies, such as natural disasters and also highlight important areas of need for agencies so that they may seek funding to support their services during these difficult times."
INFORMATION:
The public could lose trust in science if scientific and medical researchers choose to bypass the traditional high standards of peer-reviewed medical journals in the rush to get research data released, particularly during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
That's the warning from three leading medical communications organizations, that have published a joint statement in the peer-reviewed journal Current Medical Research and Opinion - asserting that the integrity of published scientific and medical research must be protected.
Out today, the joint statement from the American Medical ...
Review of 40 published studies from 17 countries offers first global assessment of the collateral impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on pregnancy outcomes.
Findings reveal overall increase in the chances of stillbirth and maternal death during the pandemic, but chances of pre-term birth decreased in high-income countries.
Women requiring surgery for ectopic pregnancies increased almost six-fold during the pandemic across all studies, after accounting for the size of included studies (surgery rate for ectopic pregnancies during pandemic 27/37 vs pre-pandemic 73/272), and symptoms of maternal depression were also increased.
Study reveals disproportionate impact ...
The pandemic is affecting every country, but not every country has equal access to the lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines. Recent estimates show that high-income countries -- which have just one-fifth of the global adult population -- have purchased more than half of the world's total vaccine doses, resulting in disparities for low- and middle-income countries.
A new study by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University investigates a key question: Will the U.S. population support donating part of its COVID-19 vaccine stockpile to less prosperous countries?
"COVID-19 is a true global pandemic that has touched every nation ...
Houston Methodist has been a leader in successfully treating high-risk patients with monoclonal antibodies (mAB) for mild to moderate Covid-19 infection. Among the nation's largest providers of mAB therapy, Houston Methodist has infused nearly 4,000 patients since the FDA's Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) was issued. The hospital system was able to quickly ramp up its program once the EUA was granted by leveraging a number of resources through interdisciplinary collaboration.
As more hospitals begin to ramp up for treating Covid-19 with mAB therapy, Houston Methodist's example serves as a valuable model for other medical systems to establish or expand mAB treatment programs and improve patient access to this critical therapy. A commentary outlining the challenges, ...
A team of University of Colorado School of Medicine researchers recently published a paper offering new insight into the role that oxygen deprivation, or hypoxia, plays in cancer development. CU Cancer Center member Joaquin Espinosa, PhD, is the senior researcher on the paper, which he hopes will help lead to more targeted treatments for cancer.
For their paper published this month in the journal Nature Communications, Espinosa and the rest of the team -- Zdenek Andrysik, PhD; Heather Bender, PhD; and Matthew Galbraith, PhD -- used state-of-the-art genomics technologies to map the response of cancer cells to hypoxia with unprecedented detail, ...
Abusive alcohol drinking considerably impacts human health. Alcoholism, better defined as Alcohol Use Disorders (AUD), includes a group of pathological entities related to alcohol-induced damage. Individuals with AUD exhibit compulsive alcohol drinking and negative emotional states when alcohol drinking ceases. In the most severe AUD forms, the individuals lose control over consumption despite a decided will to stop. Some controversial issues have arisen as to whether the definition of AUD can help to delimit and characterize clinical entities related to abusive alcohol ingestion.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that approximately 3,3 million people (5,9% of global ...
New findings from a Michigan Medicine study reveal that antibody testing is predictive of prior COVID-19 infection, and rapid screening methods - even from finger pricks - are effective testing tools.
Researchers analyzed antibody tests conducted on more than 500 subjects in patient care settings. They found that people who had COVID, including those with mild symptoms, produced antibodies.
"For a long time, people were very worried that people with mild COVID did not make immune responses," says Charles Schuler, M.D., a clinical assistant professor of allergy and immunology at Michigan Medicine. "This should give people confidence that the tests that are available to them aren't just random number generators. They're actually giving them ...
New "sweat stickers" may streamline the early diagnosis of cystic fibrosis by enabling scientists to easily gather and analyze sweat from the skin of infants and children. The stickers matched the performance of previous, more cumbersome devices when tested with 51 subjects, suggesting the stickers could address design obstacles that have held back the diagnosis and treatment of cystic fibrosis in pediatric patients. Diagnosing cystic fibrosis in infancy or childhood is critical to achieve good outcomes, as current treatments must be given early to extend lifespans and alter the course of the disease. Many current diagnostics work by detecting levels of chloride in sweat, which are elevated in cystic fibrosis patients. However, these tests must often be repeated and use unwieldy wrist-wrapped ...
For many parents, the COVID-19 pandemic has made life's everyday juggling act--managing work, school, extracurricular, and household responsibilities--much, much harder. And according to a new study led by Penn sociologists, those extra burdens have fallen disproportionately on mothers.
The research, shared in the April issue of the journal Gender and Society, investigated how shifts in work and school that arose due to the pandemic triggered changes in the division of labor in families. Using data on two-parent households from a nationwide survey conducted in April 2020, the researchers found that ...
Scientists from the Skoltech Center for Energy Science and Technology (CEST) have developed a method for modeling the behavior of 2D materials under pressure. The research will help create pressure sensors based on silicene or other 2D materials. The paper was published in the ACS Nano journal.
Silicene, which is regarded as the silicon analog of graphene, is a two-dimensional allotrope of silicon. In its normal state, bulk silicon is a semiconductor with a diamond crystal type structure. As it thins down to one or several layers, its properties change dramatically. However, it has not yet been possible to study the change in the electronic properties of 2D materials at high pressure.
Scientists from Russia, Italy, the United ...
