A Global South Perspective: The Intersection of COVID-19 and Intimate Partner Violence

ABSTRACT

Making matters more complicated, the COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be challenging on many fronts, with IPV taking center stage as a major global public health concern, in response to pandemic-related strategies like lockdowns.3,4 In this issue of AJPH, Fereidooni et al. (http//bit.ly/3NV9xG8) undertook an investigation that examined the prevalence of IPV during COVID-19 among Iranian women. [...]they provide empirical data documenting the impact COVID-19 public health prevention measures had on increasing IPV risk for women, with an emphasis on the Global South. [...]they found that a male partner becoming unemployed increased IPV risk for his female partner and that socioeconomic status served as a protective factor for women, both of which are true in Western countries.6 The Fereidooni et al. study serves to further the argument made in other studies that we should unify efforts to address violence against women by providing yet more evidence that IPV is a global public health problem that is not bound by hemisphere, continent, or region.7 CORRESPONDENCE Correspondence may be sent to Regardt Ferreira, School of Social Work, Tulane University, 127 Elk Place, New Orleans, LA 70112-2627 (e-mail rferrei@tulane.edu).