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This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: AJPH.2007.113738v1 98/3/507    most recent Submit a response View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (3) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Ackerson, L. K. Articles by Subramanian, S.V. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Ackerson, L. K. Articles by Subramanian, S.V. Related Collections Global Health Injury/Emergency Care/Violence Women's Health

Leland K. Ackerson, ScD, MPH, Ichiro Kawachi, MD, PhD, Elizabeth M. Barbeau, ScD, MPH and S.V. Subramanian, PhD

Leland K. Ackerson, Ichiro Kawachi, and S.V. Subramanian are with the Department of Society, Human Development, and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Mass. Elizabeth Barbeau is with the Department of Society, Human Development, and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be addressed to S. V. Subramanian, Department of Society, Human Development, and Health, Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave, Kresge Building, 7th flr, Boston, MA 02115-6096 (e-mail: svsubram{at}hsph.harvard.edu).

Objectives. We examined the role of women’s education and proximate educational context on intimate partner violence (IPV).

Methods. We examined a sample of 83627 married women aged 15 to 49 years from the 1998 to 1999 Indian National Family Health Survey. We used multilevel multiple logistic regression modeling to estimate the relative effect of women’s and their husband’s levels of education, spousal education differential, and community-level literacy on women’s risk of recent and lifetime IPV.

Results. In adjusted models, odds of recent IPV among women without any education were 5.61 times (95% confidence interval [CI] = 3.53, 8.92) those of college-educated women, and odds among wives of uneducated men were 1.84 times (95% CI=1.44, 2.35) those of wives of college-educated men. Women with more education than their husbands were more likely than those with educational parity to report recent IPV (odds ratio [OR]=1.18; 95% CI=1.05, 1.33). The results were similar for lifetime IPV. After we controlled for individual factors, as community male and female literacy levels increased, likelihood of IPV declined.

Conclusions. Although increasing women’s levels of education is crucial to reducing IPV for women, proximate educational context is also an important factor in reducing this public health burden.

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