Association between intimate partner violence and child nutrition in India: Findings from recent National Family Health Survey

This study aims to examine the association between maternal experience of intimate partner violence (IPV) and child nutritional status in India using the latest round of National Family Health Survey (2015-16). Child nutritional indicators - stunting, underweight, and wasting were considered as outcome variables and women's exposure to spousal violence was key exposure of interest in this study. Besides, maternity care and birth outcomes were included as mediating factors and socio-economic characteristics as confounding variables. A series of binary logistic regression models were employed for analyses of this study. This study finds that about 27% currently married women in India experienced violence perpetrated by their husbands in the past year before the survey. The prevalence of children's stunting, underweight, and wasting was 37.4%, 33.6%, and 20.4%, respectively. Crude analysis reveals that maternal experience of violence was associated with an increased likelihood of children's stunting, underweight and wasting compared to those who did not face any spousal violence. The odds of stunting, underweight and wasting remained significant, even after controlling of maternity care and birth outcome variables. After controlling for socio-demographic factors in the full model, maternal experience of violence was significantly associated with an increased risk of underweight among children; however, spousal violence had no significant association with stunting and wasting in the final model. The findings of this study highlight the urgency of effective interventions to address violence against women and nutrition-based policies and programs to combat the incidence of malnutrition among under-five children.