It should come as no surprise that domestic violence and child abuse frequently co-occur. Certainly troubling to ponder, but the two rarely happen in isolation and the impact on future generations is considerable.
Appel and Holden (1998) conducted a review of 31 studies that involved battered women. They found a 6% co-occurrence base rate within the community samples and when they applied a conservative definition of child abuse to the sample a median 40% rate of co-occurrence was detected.
Edelson (1999) reviewed 35 studies and discovered a co-occurrence rate of 30% to 60%. Edelson’s review, however, only sampled where suspected or known maltreatment was occurring. Zooming out, Jouriles and colleagues (2008) looked at 8 studies extracted from community and clinical-based samples where severe parental aggression was identified and co-occurrence ranged from 18% to 67%.
Risks Associated with Co-Occurrence
One of the largest secondary analyses of police arrest data was completed by Fantuzzo and colleagues (1997). The researchers analyzed 5 US cities (Milwaukee, Charlotte, Miami, Atlanta, and Omaha) and discovered that in households where an arrest for misdemeanor domestic violence had occurred against a female partner, parental unemployment, low levels of education (among the adults), and general poverty were prevalent. Moreover, the youngest children in the home were more likely to be exposed to varying degrees of domestic violence against their mothers coupled with substance abuse in the home.
A significant study of adverse childhood experiences among members of a San Diego, California health plan (8,600) revealed that among those who reported prior domestic violence exposure and/or child maltreatment, the prevalence of crime, substance abuse, and mental illness was also higher (Dong et al, 2004). For example, of those who indicated they had witnessed domestic violence as children, 65% of the respondents also reported having grown up with substance abuse prevalent in the home. Conversely, of those who did not witness domestic violence as children only 23% reported growing up surrounded by substance abuse.
Of a Cedar Rapids, Iowa cross-sectional study of 519 child maltreatment reports, Hartley (2002) found the co-occurrence of physical child abuse and domestic violence associated with the father’s arrest or incarceration for non-domestic abuse-related offenses and use of drugs or alcohol was positively associated. Tajima (2004) reanalyzed data from the 1985 National Family Violence Survey revealing an association between substance abuse, domestic violence exposure, and child abuse within the family. Additional factors such as depression and lower income were also related to the co-occurrence of exposure to domestic violence and child abuse.
Much of this points to the need for more holistic treatment plans that go far beyond relying on punishment alone. These are learned behaviors in many instances that must be unlearned.
