Frontiers in global women's health
Women's empowerment and intimate partner violence among pregnant women in Northern Ghana: evidence from coarsened exact matching and double-selection LASSO analyses
By Lasong J, Salifu Y and Adjeso YN.
Abstract
Background
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.
Methods
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.