This proposal is subsumed under Challenge Topic Initiating Innovative Interventions to Prevent Family Violence: 09-DA-103.09 in the broad challenge area of 09: Health Disparities. Within the description of this topic area is a request for proposals that """"""""Explore the nature of the relationship between family violence and substance abuse."""""""" This proposal is in response to that goal of the challenge topic. Domestic violence is the leading cause of injuries to women aged 15-44 years, and addressing the issue of violence against women has become a national priority (Biden, 1993). Mandated treatment of intimate partner violence (IPV), or batterer treatment, is (a) very costly, (b) generally focused on men, and (c) relatively ineffective (Babcock et al., 2004). Furthermore, men also are victims of IPV (Archer, 2000), and women's IPV is little addressed. Much governmental funding targeting this social problem has been wasted because of the lack of evidence-based treatment programs grounded in research on the agentic role of women as well as men in perpetrating IPV. Moreover, there is evidence that their physical aggression toward a partner makes them more likely to sustain an injury in retaliation (Whitaker et al., 2007). Contextual factors influencing women's IPV are not well understood, and further research would inform and strengthen prevention and treatment programs. Substance use is associated with IPV and frequently has been considered a contributing factor to IPV for men, but this issue has been little examined in women. Recent studies show that (a) women and men have engaged in some level of physical aggression toward a partner at relatively equal rates and that much physical aggression in couples'relationships is mutual and (b) developmental histories of men and women engaging in IPV show similarity in that antisocial behavior that develops by adolescence predicts later aggressive behavior toward a romantic partner, not only for young men but also for young women. These findings suggest the importance of individual psychopathology as a predictor of aggression for women. We view IPV as a dyadic behavior and take a dynamic developmental systems approach to examining the interaction of the men's and women's characteristics, current context, behavior during interaction with their partner, and changes over time, all of which affect their future interactions Antisocial behavior and depressive symptoms in women are associated with their engagement in IPV and are also associated with substance use (Glantz &Leshner, 2000). Thus, it is of critical importance to understand the association of substance use and perpetration of IPV by women. The primary purpose of the proposed study will be to examine the association of substance use, including nicotine, alcohol, marijuana, and other illicit drugs, and IPV for a sample of 160 generally lower socioeconomic women studied over multiple times with the same male partner in the Oregon Youth Study Couples sample. The extant data set includes measurement of substance use, antisocial behavior, psychopathology, and IPV for both the women and their male partners. We are also proposing to collect new data to provide additional diagnostic information on both the women and their partners'current and lifetime substance use, which will be added to an ongoing study of the couples'stress, health, and IPV (Grant HD46364;Dr. Deborah Capaldi, PI). We will also examine the validity of different models that might explain the observed associations between substance use and IPV. Model validation findings would have important implications regarding the efficacy of substance abuse prevention and treatment programs as indirect prevention and treatment for women's IPV. The proposed research will improve our understanding of (a) the contribution of substance use and dependence to the initiation of intimate partner violence for women in their twenties, (b) the association between women's substance use problems and their male partners'victimization of the women, and (c) whether women commit less intimate partner violence during times in their lives when they are abstinent from substances than when they are using, which has important implications for the effectiveness of substance use treatment as an intimate partner violence reduction intervention.
The proposed research will improve our understanding of (a) the contribution of substance use and dependence to the initiation of intimate partner violence for women in their twenties, (b) the association between women's substance use problems and their male partners'victimization of the women, and (c) whether women commit less intimate partner violence during times in their lives when they are abstinent from substances than when they are using, which has important implications for the effectiveness of substance use treatment as an intimate partner violence reduction intervention.
