The intersection of intimate partner violence and traumatic brain injury: A call for
interdisciplinary research
By: Gwen Hunnicutt, Kristine Lundgren, Christine Murray, and Loreen Olson
Hunnicutt, G., Lundgren, K., Murray, C., & Olson, L. (2017). The intersection of intimate
partner violence and traumatic brain injury: A call for interdisciplinary research. Journal of
Family Violence, 32, 471-480. DOI: 10.1007/s10896-016-9854-7
This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Journal of Family
Violence. The final authenticated version is available online at:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10896-016-9854-7
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Abstract:
An emerging body of research suggests that survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) are at a
high risk for sustaining traumatic brain injury (TBI). However, most scholars and practitioners
working on the problem of IPV have not examined how TBI could be related to their familiar
subject of study. Concomitantly, little work in the brain injury field has been done to examine
TBI in the context of IPV. In this paper, we encourage cross-collaboration among these fields.
To that end, we consider the relationship between IPV and TBI; the difficulty in detecting and
measuring the IPV-related TBI and ethical concerns that may arise when addressing this issue.
Our work emphasizes the need to recognize the complex interplay among psycho-physiological
health and socio-cultural contexts. As such, we present a socio-ecological perspective of IPV-
related TBI to provide a contextual framework to guide future interdisciplinary research. Finally,
we outline directions for future research.
Keywords: Gender | Domestic violence | Public health | Socio-ecological framework
Article:
In recent years, media stories related to the dangers of traumatic brain injury (TBI) have
increased the public’s attention and prompted much dialogue about the detection and subsequent
effects of injury to the brain. Most of this press coverage has focused on TBI among professional
football players and war veterans. Specifically, increases in suicides among Iraq and Afghanistan
war veterans and cases of widespread neurodegenerative disease among some professional
football players have spurred much of this national attention (Belson 2013; Wenner 2012). In
the New York Times alone, there were 432 articles about TBI in the National Football League
(NFL) published between 2007 and 2013 and hundreds more dealing with TBI among war
veterans (Wenner 2012).