Purpose

Following the rise of the novel coronavirus, de facto residential quarantines resulted either from executive stay-at-home orders, unemployment or through remote work requirements. One question that has arisen is whether the COVID-19 quarantines led to increases in domestic violence (DV), with research findings thus far being mixed. To further this understanding, this study examined whether the frequency and geographic dispersion of DV increased during stay-at-home and phased reopening periods of the pandemic in New Orleans, Louisiana while accounting for socio-economic determinants.

Methods

The study built on a natural experiment of home quarantine and examined its effects on DV using a mixed-methods approach of quantitative and geospatial analyses. Data for the analyses came from a sample of 11,502 police reported DV incidents and ArcGIS portal data of sociodemographic information across neighborhood statistical areas (NSAs).

Results

While results revealed no significant increase of DV during early phases of the quarantine, a significant increase in frequency was observed in the second reopening phase compared to the same time-period in the previous year. However, the dispersion of DV incidents appeared stable with continued concentrations in pre-existing geographic ‘hot spots.’ Conversely, households which were greater in size exhibited significantly fewer DV incidents.

Conclusion

Findings suggest that prevention programs might target residences already inflicted with domestic violence histories in advance of future pandemic or natural disaster related residential quarantines. Findings also reveal that situational factors, such as number of household residents, might be used to triage the delivery of services.

中文翻译：

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关于 covid-19 住宅隔离对新奥尔良家庭暴力模式影响的自然实验结果

目的

随着新型冠状病毒的兴起，事实上的住宅隔离是由于行政人员居家令、失业或远程工作要求造成的。出现的一个问题是 COVID-19 隔离是否导致家庭暴力 (DV) 增加，迄今为止的研究结果喜忧参半。为进一步了解这一点，本研究调查了在路易斯安那州新奥尔良的居家期间和分阶段重新开放大流行期间 DV 的频率和地理分布是否增加，同时考虑了社会经济决定因素。

方法

该研究建立在家庭隔离的自然实验之上，并使用定量和地理空间分析的混合方法检查其对 DV 的影响。用于分析的数据来自 11,502 起警察报告的 DV 事件样本和跨邻里统计区域 (NSA) 的社会人口统计信息的 ArcGIS 门户数据。

结果

虽然结果显示在隔离的早期阶段 DV 没有显着增加，但与去年同期相比，在第二个重新开放阶段观察到频率显着增加。然而，DV 事件的分散似乎稳定，并继续集中在先前存在的地理“热点”。相反，规模较大的家庭表现出明显较少的 DV 事件。

结论

调查结果表明，预防计划可能会针对在未来大流行病或自然灾害相关的住宅隔离之前已经遭受家庭暴力历史的住所。调查结果还表明，情境因素（例如家庭居民人数）可用于对服务的提供进行分类。