# **1 Introduction**

It is challenging to accurately measure sensitive attitudes, behaviors, and experiences such as political preferences, prejudice, risky sex, and intimate partner violence (IPV). Often, researchers and policy makers must rely on self-reported survey data, yet such data may not be accurate. For sensitive topics in particular, there are many reasons why survey respondents may be reluctant to tell the truth, including a fear of being judged, endangered, or legally penalized (Blair, Coppock and Moor, 2018). If misreporting bias is significant and systematic, researchers and policy makers risk over or under-estimating the prevalence and welfare costs of sensitive issues, and drawing inaccurate conclusions about their causes and potential solutions.

survey methods. We assess whether survey methods that increase respondent privacy and anonymity affect IPV reporting compared to the status quo of direct face-to-face interviews.<sup>1</sup> In Rwanda and Nigeria, we randomly assigned women to answer questions about their experience of emotional, physical and sexual violence using one of three methods: an indirect method (list experiment) and two direct survey methods: face-to-face questions asked by an enumerator, or audio computer-assisted self-interview (ACASI) on an electronic tablet. Compared to the direct face-to-face method, the list experiment method provides additional confidentiality as respondents do not directly disclose their experience of violence. Instead, they give a response that allows researchers to calculate average prevalence across the whole sample, essentially making respondents’ answers anonymous (Blair and Imai, 2012). The ACASI method affords more privacy than face-to-face methods as respondents answer questions themselves by listening to pre-recorded questions in a headset and then selecting their answer on a tablet.

Results suggest that estimated IPV prevalence varies depending on the survey method used to measure it. The most widely used method, face-to-face interview, resulted in the lowest IPV rates, followed by the more private ACASI method, and finally, the anonymous list method with the highest. In Rwanda, IPV rates were double, and in Nigeria, up to 39 percent greater when measured using the list method compared to the direct methods. There was no statistically significant difference between the list and direct methods for rates of non-partner sexual violence in Rwanda or sexual IPV in Nigeria. This lack of difference for sexual violence could be explained by a lack of statistical power in Rwanda, and a Nigerian context where sexual IPV was not significantly stigmatized.

We also that misreporting is systematic and correlated with characteristics often theorized as causes of IPV and targeted in women’s empowerment programs. The characteristics that correlate differently with IPV depending on the measurement method used include indicators of women’s education and employment, community gender norms, vulnerability, and marital relationship quality. For example, in Rwanda, when IPV was measured using the direct methods, there was no relationship between IPV and conservative community gender norms. However, when IPV was measured using the list method,

> 1In more than 60 developing countries, Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) have included a standardized domestic violence module where enumerators directly ask women about their experience of a set of specific emotional, physical, and sexual abuse episodes by an intimate partner. Using the face-to-face method, the WHO estimates that approximately one in three women worldwide has experienced IPV in her lifetime (García-Moreno et al., 2013). IPV prevalence varies widely, though rates are generally highest in Africa (Devries et al., 2013; Global Burden of Disease, 2017). Researchers collecting IPV survey data take steps to minimize the risk of underreporting, for example by instituting ethics protocols about privacy during interviews, asking multiple questions to give respondents several opportunities to disclose violence, and using specially-trained female enumerators to conduct women’s interviews (Heise and Hossain, 2017; WHO, 2016, 2001). However, it is still assumed that face-to-face data collection may yield underestimates given the sensitivity.

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