A new commentary published in Lancet-Global Health by George Mason University’s College of Health and Human Services’ Dr. Jhumka Gupta, and co-author Dr. Elizabeth Reed of San Diego University’s School of Public Health, discusses a study by Dr. Saidi Kapiga and colleagues. The study was a randomized control trial of MAISHA--an intervention that combined economic strengthening with social empowerment to reduce intimate partner violence (IPV) against women in Tanzania. Kapiga et al found that after 24 months, the women who participated in both microfinance and a social empowerment curriculum were less likely to report IPV, express attitudes accepting it, or view it as a private matter than women who only received microfinance alone.
“Dr. Kapiga and colleagues from the MAISHA study team should be commended for furthering current understanding of economic and social empowerment interventions in reducing IPV, and extending findings from earlier work to a new setting,” explains Gupta.
Gupta and Reed highlight the importance of future intervention research to investigate pathways, and how they may impact different forms of IPV (financial, physical, emotional, and sexual). They underscore the importance of adapting promising IPV intervention models to refugee and immigrant populations in high income settings. Lastly, they emphasize the need for funding agencies to support more extended periods of follow-up to better understand how IPV interventions fare in the long term.