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oai:figshare.com:article/34039719 2026-10-01T05:43:18Z category_7 portal_316 item_type_3 month_year_10_2026

Table 2_Women's empowerment and intimate partner violence among pregnant women in Northern Ghana: evidence from coarsened exact matching and double-selection LASSO analyses.docx Joseph Lasong (724516) Yula Salifu (23095648) Yaa Nyarko Adjeso (25153053) Medicine coarsened exact matching Double-Selection LASSO economic empowerment Ghana household decision-making intimate partner violence reproductive autonomy women's empowerment Background<p>Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a major public health problem in sub-Saharan Africa. Its relationship with women's empowerment is theoretically contested, and most studies collapse empowerment into a single composite score, which may mask dimension-specific associations. We examined three empowerment dimensions including reproductive autonomy, household decision-making, and economic empowerment against physical, sexual, and emotional IPV among pregnant women in Northern Ghana.</p>Methods<p>We surveyed 260 pregnant women attending antenatal care (April–May 2023). Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM) balanced high- and low-empowerment women on age, education, and number of children, retaining n = 246 for the pre-specified primary analysis. Double-Selection LASSO (DSL) logistic regression, applied to the full analytical sample (n = 260), served as a complementary sensitivity analysis. Balance after matching was assessed by standardised mean differences (SMDs) and variance ratios.</p>Results<p>Any-IPV prevalence was 59.6%. Two associations showed convergent evidence across both Methods: (1) reproductive autonomy was protective against sexual IPV (CEM OR = 0.34, 95% CI 0.19–0.61; DSL OR = 0.36, 95% CI 0.20–0.63) and emotional IPV (CEM OR = 0.29, 95% CI 0.16–0.54; DSL OR = 0.36, 95% CI 0.20–0.64); and (2) household decision-making was positively associated with physical IPV in a backlash-direction pattern (CEM OR = 1.34, 95% CI 1.07–1.66, p = 0.009; DSL OR = 1.26, 95% CI 1.03–1.55, p = 0.028). Economic empowerment and the composite empowerment index were not significantly associated with any IPV outcome in either analysis.</p>Conclusions<p>Reproductive autonomy showed a protective association with sexual and emotional IPV in the two different analytic approaches. Household decision-making showed a convergent positive association with physical IPV consistent with the backlash hypothesis. Composite empowerment scores obscured all dimension-specific patterns. Interventions strengthening reproductive autonomy, particularly contraceptive access and sexual-consent education, may reduce IPV vulnerability more directly than broad aggregated empowerment measures.</p> 2026-10-01T05:43:18Z Dataset Dataset 10.3389/fgwh.2026.1905930.s001 https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/Table_2_Women_s_empowerment_and_intimate_partner_violence_among_pregnant_women_in_Northern_Ghana_evidence_from_coarsened_exact_matching_and_double-selection_LASSO_analyses_docx/34039719 CC BY 4.0