Citation

Nancarrow H, Lockie S, Sharma S. Trends Iss. Crime Crim. Justice 2009; 378.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Australian Institute of Criminology)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Perceptions about the mining industry and the rapid growth of mining communities in Australia has led to concerns that these communities are prone to higher rates of intimate partner violence than the general community. This paper provides a summary of research that examined the nature and prevalence of intimate partner abuse of women in Central Queensland's Bowen Basin region. Using data collected in June and July 2007 via telephone interviews, the survey asked about socio-demographic, relational, behavioural and health characteristics of participants. Of the 532 women surveyed, 11.5 percent had experienced physical abuse and 31.4 percent had experienced non-physical forms of abuse. A number of characteristics were found to be significantly associated with abuse. For example, depression was significantly associated with sexual assault and both depression and severe psychological symptoms were significantly correlated with all other forms of abuse. However, contrary to concerns expressed by human service providers, the study suggests that women in mining cultures do not experience greater levels of abuse than do women in the general community.