Reviewer's report 
 Risk factors for domestic violence: eight national cross-sectional household surveys in southern Africa Title: 
 1  5 February 2007 Version: Date: 
 Gene Feder Reviewer: 
Reviewer's report: 
General 
This paper reports a cross-sectional questionnaire-based study of a stratified random sample of 20,000 
adults in 7 southern African countries, testing the associaton between experience of physical violence from 
a partner in the past year and a wide range of demographic, behavioural, and attitudinal factors. The survey 
was designed to give baseline measures to help assess a media/educational campaign on attitudes and 
behaviours (not clear which ones) and not to test specific hypotheses about associations with domestic 
violence. There were no consistent associations between any demographic factors and reported violence in the past year, but there were with number of sexual partners and attitudes towards sexual entitlement. The overall design of the survey was robust with an appropriate sampling strategy, despite the acknowledged 
bias towards participants at home during the day. The analysis was appropriate. 
The major weakness of the study was the single question about domestic violence, which meant that other dimensions of violence (sexual, emotional, economic) were excluded and severity and consequences were not measured. The absence of data on severity probably obscures substantial gender differences in 
violence, not reflected in the headline prevalance figures, which are comparable (as they are in most 
epidemiological studies of partner violence - why were the authors surprised?) The term "violent altercation" 
completely conflates fights between partners with systematic coercion in a relationship. The combination of results for men and women in the narrative and the tables further obscures possible gender differences, 
although that distinction will remain difficult because of the nature of the single violence question. Another 
potential weakness, not in the analysis, but in the interpretation, was the use of absolute economic or education data. Measures of economic inequality are more closely associated with violence than absolute measures (see Richard Wilkinson's, Impact of Inequality). 
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Major Compulsory Revisions (that the author must respond to before a decision on publication can be reached) 
Present results by gender rather than combined. 
Acknowledge limitations of a single violence question and the implications for your interpretation of the 
results 
If possible, investigate whether differences in economic inequality account for country differences in 
prevalance or at least refer to that possiblity 
p.7 para 2: report non-response to violence question by gender 
p.9 para 4: explain why there is a "convincing association between renumerated occupation and partner violence" when the 95%c.i. goes from 0.8 to 1.1 
p.10 para 2: clarify the results in the text about the association between number of partners and partner 
violence - does this really mean the number of partners of the victim of partner violence? This seems implausible to me...but perhaps the authors have an explanation. I couldn't find a table reporting this result by country. 
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Minor Essential Revisions (such as missing labels on figures, or the wrong use of a term, which the author 
can be trusted to correct) 
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Discretionary Revisions (which the author can choose to ignore) 
 Unable to decide on acceptance or rejection until the authors have responded to the major What next?: 
compulsory revisions 
 An article whose findings are important to those with closely related research interests Level of interest: 
 Acceptable Quality of written English: 
 Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report. Statistical review: 
Declaration of competing interests: 
I declare that I have no competing interests