COVID-19 Shelter-at-Home Orders: Impacts and Policy Responses in the Context of Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

On January 5, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO, 2020) published its first global announcement about a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown etiology detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. Throughout that month, globally, health experts attempted to gather more data to better understand the nature of the mysterious illness. On February 11, 2020, the WHO assigned the name COVID-19 to the disease and by mid-March, declared it a pandemic, having documented 114 countries reporting cases (Ghebreyesus, 2020). Until mid-March, much of the daily lives of people around the world, including the lives of those experiencing intimate partner violence, remained status quo. COVID-19 was unknown prior to this pandemic and globally medical researchers are collecting data that can help frame government policy responses for mitigating its spread until both a vaccine and an effective treatment are found. While COVID-19 negatively impacts public health, economic, and social structures, individual stakeholder groups experience differential impacts. This article provides a preliminary assessment of how related public health policy interventions are affecting the incidence of intimate partner violence and presents several recommendations for mitigating their impact at the national and subnational levels of government.