The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Domestic Violence Injury: Insights from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)

Abstract

This study examined the consequences of domestic violence (DV) in light of the multiple changes to the lifestyles and routine activities of households during the Covid-19 pandemic using incident-level data from the National Crime Victimization Survey. Through logistic regressions, we first examined odds of injury among DV victims. We then examined odds of severe injury among DV victims who experienced injury. We compared the pre-pandemic odds of these injurious outcomes to these odds in two distinctive periods during the Covid-19 pandemic — March 2020-March 2021 and April 2021-December 2022. Study results suggest that the risk of both “any injury” and “severe injury” was higher between March 2020-March 2021 in comparison to the pre-pandemic period. Findings further suggest that the risk and severity of DV victims’ injury after April 2021 were not significantly different from the pre-pandemic era. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.