» Report Confirms Pandemic-Related Spikes in Domestic Violence

man-Meza and colleagues demonstrates that the abyss in access across countries is compounded by gross inequities within them,” Dr. Knaul said. “Such analysis should be replicated wherever data are available.

“Going forward, coverage and access to pain relief should be a priority for policymakers to alleviate immediate and future serious health-related suffering. Monitoring access to opioid medicines is essential to ensure that pain and suffering, especially among the poorest populations, is neither ignored nor neglected.”

Felicia Knaul, Ph.D.

Written by Maya Bell Published on March 1, 2021 Category: Faculty, Report

Led by the University of Miami, a study suggests that quarantines spurred by coronavirus safety precautions have increased physical abuse across the nation and around the world.

Last April, as the novel coronavirus marched relentlessly across the country, United Nations Secretary Antonio Guterres urged the world to address the “horrifying surge in domestic violence” that mandatory lockdowns were triggering across the globe.

Now, a new analysis led by the University of Miami for the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice, confirmed that stay-athome orders essential to suppressing the highly contagious virus had the negative consequence of increasing domestic violence incidents by more than 8 percent in the United States alone.

“When you have individuals who are not used to being together 24/7, you’re going to have pent-up stress and anxiety,” said Alex Piquero, chair of the University’s Department of Sociology, who led the study at the request of the commission established to evaluate the pandemic’s impact on the justice system. “Add to that all the problems we’ve seen during the pandemic—with people losing their jobs, with children schooled at home, with increased alcohol sales and opioid use—it’s easy to imagine a world where people who are trapped together are going to lash out at each other.”

For their report, Domestic Violence During COVID-19, Piquero, and four co-authors, including Felicia Marie Knaul, director of the University’s Institute for Advanced Study of the Americas, analyzed 18 academic studies that compared the number of domestic violence incidents before and after multiple jurisdictions began imposing stay-at-home restrictions last spring. The studies included six from overseas, specifically from Australia, Brazil, India, Italy, Sweden, and Mexico.

From those studies—which relied on administrative data from police logs for domestic violence calls, crime and incident reports, domestic violence hotlines, and health records—the researchers confirmed what social