Background: Little is known about the perspectives of South Asian mothers with regards to the experience of intimate partner violence (IPV), including risk and protective factors, impacts of exposure, and help-seeking. This thesis is comprised of two sub-studies. In the first study, a scoping review was conducted to identify and map the literature on IPV amongst South Asian women residing outside of South Asia. The second study consists of a qualitative project to explore how IPV is perceived among South Asian mothers living in Ontario, Canada. Methods: The first study was a scoping review conducted using the 5-stage framework outlined by Arksey and O’Malley, and later advanced by Levac et al. Four health and social science databases, including Embase, CINAHL, Medline, and PsychINFO were systematically searched from inception to June 2020 using the themes “intimate partner violence” and “South Asian.” Studies were screened for inclusion based on pre-determined eligibility criteria, and relevant data with regards to study location, journal type, and sample characteristics were abstracted by two independent reviewers. Studies were organized and synthesized into thematic categories. Then a qualitative descriptive study was conducted with a purposeful sample of 6 South Asian mothers from the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, recruited from a sub-sample of the SouTh Asian biRth CohorT Study (START). Semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore their perceptions and experiences of IPV in their community. The interview data were analysed using reflective thematic analysis. Findings: The scoping review revealed that most studies qualitatively explored the experiences and perceptions of IPV amongst women of the South Asian diaspora; however, there was a paucity of quantitative literature to ascertain the impacts of exposure to IPV. Similarly, there was a dearth of literature on the prevention of IPV in this population. Other research gaps included the lack of clinical samples, the underrepresentation of some South Asian ethnicities over others, and the overrepresentation of studies conducted in the USA. The qualitative descriptive study revealed that among this sample of South Asian mothers, they expressed that in-laws play a significant role in contributing to violence from in-laws, which can lead to IPV, and in increasing a woman’s risk of experiencing IPV by adhering to traditional gender roles. Participants identified that the IPV can manifest as unequal sharing of responsibilities between partners and women’s education can be protective against IPV. Participants believed that their concern for their children’s well-being along with cultural expectations of South Asian females, played a key role in the decision to seek help for IPV. Participants identified that physicians could play an important role in helping women who have experienced IPV by asking about IPV and offering resources. Discussion: This scoping review, which identified and mapped IPV literature, and qualitative study, which investigated the perceptions of IPV amongst South Asian mothers, contribute to the body of IPV literature amongst women in the South Asian diaspora. The findings can help inform future research directions, and can contribute to the general understanding of stakeholders, such as service providers for IPV, about how IPV is understood, experienced, and addressed among South Asian mothers. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is an insidious societal problem with potentially lethal ramifications. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, widespread conditions and virus risk mitigation procedures like social distancing and stay-at-home orders exacerbated factors that contribute to IPV such as poverty and substance use. Though anyone can experience IPV, mothers carried unparalleled burdens in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic such as increasing childcare responsibilities, growing financial difficulties, and worsening mental health, and many of these factors have been linked to experiencing IPV. The growing body of literature indicates a rise in IPV during COVID-19, but little has been empirically established on the interactions between IPV, motherhood, and COVID-19. This study used inductive thematic analysis of open responses to an online survey completed by a sample (n = 55) of mothers in U.S. metropolitan areas who were at least 18 years old and who had experienced IPV in the last five years. Data were organized by respondents' perceptions of the pandemic's impact (positive, negative, or no impact) on their interactions with abusive partners, overall well-being, and feelings of safety. Responses indicating a negative impact were sorted into three themes: Pandemic Circumstances Creating or Exacerbating Problems, Adapting Abuse Tactics to Fit Pandemic Circumstances, and Strategically Managing Abusive Situations. Responses indicating no impact were sorted into two themes: No Impact (General) and No Contact. Responses indicating a positive impact were sorted into two themes: Feeling Safer During the Pandemic and Improving Mother-Child Situations. Furthermore, respondents identified mental health care, legal or judicial assistance, and financial support as needed resources during the height of COVID-19 shutdowns. Findings can be used to aid mothers in future pandemics as well as natural disasters, wars, and similar environmental conflicts.

Objective: Shared Decision-Making (SDM) as a clinical approach allows patients and physicians to discuss the best treatment options for the patients' improved health outcomes. Over the past two decades, SDM has improved the quality of health by reassuring patients that they have a voice when considering treatment options. The objective of this study is threefold: to examine parents' perceptions of engaging in SDM with their physicians about their treatment options; to engage in the SDM process when their children's mental health conditions were the subject of SDM; and to assess the comfort level of parents engaging in SDM, based upon their highest levels of education. Specifically, the researcher was interested in how parents' racial demographics influenced their involvement in the SDM process. Methods: The researcher reviewed in-depth the 2016-2017 National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH). In that study, interviewers asked parents of different races how they engaged in SDM with their physicians, when discussing their health and their children's mental health issues. The three questions dealt with parents' experiences with SDM and their physicians, parents' experiences with SDM when discussing their children's mental health conditions, and how parents' highest educational attainment might impact their comfort levels in engaging in SDM with their physicians. The researcher conducted a Univariate descriptive statistic, Cronbach Alpha Score, ANOVA, T-test and Tukey poc test to make valid conclusions in answering the question, "How does shared decision-making between patient and physician differ by race?"

Intimate partner violence (IPV) and poverty plague populations as twin social crises. Just as IPV has implications in terms of gender, race, magnitude, and deleteriousness—so does poverty. IPV cuts across demography but has concentrated burden for certain groups. In addition to the many dimensions of violence survivors may face, survivors may face economic abuse, as well as difficulty working or attaining an education. Poverty, measured in relative and absolute terms, is stratified by various demographic categories (e.g., disability, ethnicity, gender), with certain groups facing an enhanced prevalence of the issue. With these demographic disparities working in the background of the IPV-poverty connection, various inequality dynamics (e.g., social control, resource scarcity, bureaucracy) constrict survivors' options. This constriction can lead to deleterious outcomes: homelessness, staying with partner-violent people, or facing failure-to-protect prosecution. Having concentrated implications for female-headed families, these possibilities have been subject to policies that attempt to moderate and disentangle the IPV-poverty relationship. Public policies targeting IPV and poverty, constructed through federalism, separation of powers, and symbolic politics, are further implemented to target various IPV categories, including firearms, housing, immigration, healthcare, employment, and compensatory strategies for victims. The current study aims to answer the following research question: What are the intricacies of the relationships among IPV, IPV-related statutes, and poverty rates among female-headed families with related children at the state-level in the United States? Using secondary data and legal sources, the current study looks at the potential moderating effect of policy in the IPV-poverty relationship across the United States's major subnational units. Discussions of findings are provided accordingly.

Guided by Nils Christie's (1986) Ideal Victim framework, the current study examines the effect that victim/offender relationship status (casual vs. serious), victim self-identity (as a "victim" or a "survivor"), and observer gender (woman vs. man) have on victim blame attributions. Data were collected from 329 adult students at a large public university in the Southwest United States using an online, experimental vignette design. Three separate one-way analysis of variances (ANOVAs) were conducted to test the study's three hypotheses. Results suggest that among the study sample, victim/offender relationship status (H1) and victim self-identity (H2) do not significantly affect victim blame attribution towards victims of IPVAW. Results do support H3 suggesting that observer gender does significantly affect victim blame attribution towards victims of IPVAW with men participants attributing more victim blame than women participants. Future research directions to better capture the nuances of (IPVAW) victim/offender relationship status (among "dating" couples) and self-identity of an (IPVAW) victim (as a "victim" or a "survivor") are identified and conceptual replication is encouraged.

Exploring social attitudes towards acceptability of intimate partner violence (IPV) is essential to understanding the nature of IPV. Attitudes justifying acceptability of wife battery may strongly predict perpetration and victimization as well as institutional responses to IPV against women. Feminist scholars emphasize that supportive attitudes towards wife beating are largely impacted by the prevalence of patriarchal values and traditional gender roles in society. Petroleum patriarchy theory suggests that oil rich countries experience greater gender inequality and have stronger patriarchal values. The current study integrates these two theories using the concept of the double curse effect. The study used mixed - effect ordered logistic regression to assess attitudes towards wife beating while utilizing individual and country level variables. The data on gendered attitudes includes attitudes about justification of wife beating that were derived from the World Values Survey, Wave 6, for the period 2010-2014. The data included 14,872 respondents from 10 former Soviet countries. Data on oil and gas revenues for post-Soviet countries were obtained from the Ross-Mahdavi Oil and Gas Dataset. The data on HDI, GDI, GII were derived from UN reports. The indicators represent dimensions of human development and gender inequality at the country level. This study showed that individuals from oil rich post-Soviet countries and individuals who support statements about gender inequality are more prone to justify wife battery. Results from this study support the double curse concept. Further, this study is unique as it analyzed an understudied region and focused on the impact of the individual and structural level data on attitudes towards wife beating.

Love and romantic relationships have the capacity to influence one's welfare in the most profound ways. Intimate partner psychological aggression (IPPA), defined as verbal and nonverbal behaviours that aim to belittle, coerce, isolate, or control (Baldry, 2003; Shorey et al., 2012), is the most prevalent form of partner aggression (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019), and can have significant negative outcomes on its victims. The detrimental outcomes of IPPA warrant additional research on factors that may be associated with its sustained prevalence in men and women. While various studies have revealed that justifying a harmful behaviour can maintain and, in some cases, aggravate the behaviour (e.g., Martens & Kosloff, 2012; Mulder & van Dijk, 2020), few have explored its associations to IPPA. This doctoral dissertation focuses on IPPA and how it is justified. Specifically, the two complementary studies investigated how justifications for using IPPA relate to other features of psychological functioning (e.g., adult romantic attachment, relationship satisfaction, anger management, psychopathy, childhood trauma, drug and alcohol use) to better understand the IPPA phenomenon. The present dissertation is in article format and contains four sections: a general introduction, two articles, and a general discussion. The general introduction presents the topic of the dissertation, defines the primary constructs, states the problem statement, provides a robust theoretical basis, and specifies its main objectives. The two articles contain the following sections: introduction, objectives and hypotheses, method, analyses, results and discussion. Both articles are presented according to the format requested by their respective peer-reviewed journal. Lastly, the general discussion summarizes the findings of both articles, presents their implications and outlines limitations and future directions for prospective studies. All study materials (i.e., ethics approval notice, consent form, self-report measures) are included as appendices. The first study explored the association between how individuals justify their use of IPPA and their adult romantic attachment (i.e., defined through levels of attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance) in Canadian community couples experiencing bi-directional aggression. The sample consisted of 162 adult participants (81 mixed-sex couples). The data were analyzed using structural equation modelling (i.e., actor-partner interdependence model) to test the study's hypotheses, as it is one of few statistical models to account for variances between and within partners. Path analysis based on the APIM model revealed statistically meaningful associations between attachment anxiety and all types of justifications, as well as no statistically significant associations between attachment avoidance and the justifications. In addition, a small but significant association was found between men's attachment avoidance and women's use of external justifications for their use of IPPA. The results are discussed using the theoretical lenses of attachment theory and cognitive dissonance, and highlight the significance of justifications in adults with higher levels of attachment anxiety. The second study investigated a new typology of men's use of IPPA. A sample of 456 men seeking therapeutic services for their couple relationship problems was recruited to complete a battery of questionnaires. Latent profile analyses revealed a final five-profile solution model. The five profiles were then compared on a series of IPPA-related variables to offer more descriptive information on each profile. Overall, the results emphasize the importance of inquiring about the justifications accompanying men's use of IPPA to support the conceptualization and orient treatment for this population. Taken together, these independent studies provide a complementary overview of the associations between justification for IPPA use and other features of psychological functioning. While the first study focuses on the associations between justifications and romantic attachment, the second uses justifications as an indicator variable to classify participants and then compares the profiles on a multitude of variables, including adult romantic attachment. Moreover, the studies' complementary analytical and methodological approaches offer results that, combined, refer to men and women, individuals and couples, and investigates justification across a community and a middle-ground sample (i.e., sharing characteristics of both a community and a clinical sample). Moreover, the combination of the studies’ variable-centered analyses (i.e., study 1; focus the analysis on the relationship among variables) and person-centered analyses (i.e., study 2; focus the analysis on the classification of individuals) reflects an important strength of this dissertation. The results highlight the importance of considering the justifications for using IPPA and stress its relevance with other dimensions of psychological functioning. The results contribute to the literature and overall understanding justifications for intimate partner aggression and add support to some of the theories that inform conceptualizations and treatment of individuals who are dealing with IPPA.

Since the legalization of abortion in 1973, abortion continues to be an ongoing debate among pro-choice and pro-life groups, and politicians, and is one of the many barriers women may face. As rape continues in being a significant social issue, rape-related pregnancies and abortions have been understudied. By using the General Social Survey (GSS), this paper analyzes various sociodemographic variables which may influence social attitudes toward rape-related abortions. Findings indicate that Blacks, women, those living in the South, and age were not significant predictors of whether a pregnant woman should have a legal abortion as a result of rape. Other sociodemographic variables were significant; many supporting previous studies. However, this paper adds to the literature since social attitudes related to rape-related abortions have not been thoroughly studied. As this issue may arise, it is critical for professionals working with victims/survivors to understand, offer, and not judge women's decision should they decide to terminate their pregnancy. Due to various potential barriers women face, we may never obtain an accurate number of rape-related abortions or pregnancies. Because women may not report their rape, future research should focus on women in hospitals, abortion clinics, etc. to get a better understanding of the issue.

Over 40,000 arsons were reported in the 2014 Uniform Crime Report; however, this number is underestimated since there are no official arson trends reported by the FBI due to the lack of agencies reporting this offense. Arson is one of the most destructive and under researched crimes. This lack of research can be attributed to the dual definition of arson – that is, the destruction of one's own property or someone else's property – the opportunistic nature of arson, and the inability to determine a measurable rate. The current study uses data from the Chicago Police Department's Citizen Law Enforcement Analysis and Reporting (CLEAR) System and the 2010 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates to explore arson offending among and across neighborhoods within the framework of routine activities theory and social disorganization theory. Spatially weighted negative binomial regression is used to test correlation and significance. Analyses were run in STATA and ArcGIS 10.4.1. Results are consistent with prior arson research showing that rates of occurrence are increased by structural measures such as social disorganization, physical disorder, and public transportation. However, racial heterogeneity and accessibility to public transportation are shown to both increase or decrease rates of arson occurrence depending on the subtype of arson. These results suggest that community characteristics may play a greater role in understanding arson offending than previously thought.

Pregnancy-associated Homicides (PAHs) are homicides committed while a woman is pregnant, and recent reports from Florida's Pregnancy-associated Mortality Review (PAMR) suggest that it is a leading cause of unnatural deaths for pregnant women. However, a study has not examined the motives, characteristics, and underlying factors behind these homicides. Therefore, this study explored Florida's Pregnancy-associated Intimate Partner Homicides (PAIPHs) using a sample of women that were reportedly pregnant at the time of their mortality (n=33), as well as a comparison group of not-pregnant women (n=33). To conduct the study, reported homicide data from news sources, police reports, and other public records from 2000 to 2019 were aggregated, coded, and analyzed. Findings show that there are differences between PAIPHs and Not-pregnant Intimate Partner Homicides (NPIPHs), and pregnancy is a risk factor for femicide. The primary motives were unwanted pregnancy or relationship, rejection, avoidance of prosecution, abuse exposure, doubts concerning the paternity of the child, and infidelity accusations. Although PAIPH and NPIPH victims were killed for leaving or threatening to leave the perpetrator, PAIPH victims were more likely to be killed because the perpetrator wanted to end the relationship. Most PAIPH victims were unmarried or recently married (less than a year), and Black women had the highest rate of victimization. As for PAIPH perpetrators,78.5% were Black, 30.3% were convicted felons, and some intentionally targeted the unborn child with a knife, gun or blunt force. The findings suggest a need for Maternal Intimate Partner Violence programs, policies, and interventions targeted towards pregnant women and their intimate partners, as well as strategies to combat firearm usage amongst convicted felons.