Abstract
BackgroundPreventing intimate partner violence (IPV) remains a global public health challenge. Studies suggest urban informal settlements have particularly high levels of IPV and HIV-prevalence and these settlements are rapidly growing. The current evidence base of effective approaches to preventing IPV recognizes the potential of combining economic strengthening and gender transformative interventions. However, few of these interventions have been done in urban informal settlements, and almost none have included men as direct recipients of these interventions.MethodsStepping Stones and Creating Futures intervention is a participatory gender transformative and livelihoods strengthening intervention. It is being evaluated through a cluster randomized control trial amongst young women and men (18–30) living in urban informal settlements in eThekwini Municipality, South Africa. The evaluation includes a qualitative process evaluation and cost-effectiveness analysis. A comparison of baseline characteristics of participants is also included.DiscussionThis is one of the first large trials to prevent IPV and HIV-vulnerability amongst young women and men in urban informal settlements. Given the mixed methods evaluation, the results of this trial have the ability to develop a stronger understanding of what works to prevent violence against women and the processes of change in interventions.Trial registrationNCT03022370. Registered 13 January 2017, retrospectively registered.
Highlights
Preventing intimate partner violence (IPV) remains a global public health challenge
A quarter of women have been raped by a partner or non-partner, and between 28 and 37% of men disclose rape perpetration of partner or non-partner in surveys [3, 4]
This paper describes the Stepping Stones and Creating Futures Intervention trial in terms of the SPIRIT (Additional file 1: Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials) 2013 Checklist, alongside a comparison of baseline characteristics of participants
Summary
Preventing intimate partner violence (IPV) remains a global public health challenge. Studies suggest urban informal settlements have high levels of IPV and HIV-prevalence and these settlements are rapidly growing. The current evidence base of effective approaches to preventing IPV recognizes the potential of combining economic strengthening and gender transformative interventions. Few of these interventions have been done in urban informal settlements, and almost none have included men as direct recipients of these interventions. Global statistics indicate high levels of women’s victimization by intimate and non-partners, with an estimated 36% of women globally having experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence (IPV) or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime [1]. Population-based estimates for South Africa from 2010, show a lifetime prevalence in adult women of physical IPV victimisation of 33% and past-year prevalence of 13%, and 40% of men disclose having perpetrated physical IPV [3]. In southern and eastern Africa they are between 15 and 25% more likely to acquire HIV [7]
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