Associations of emotional, physical and sexual abuse with network centrality in a population of Latina seasonal farmworkers.

backgroundThis study described exposure to abuse (emotional, sexual, and physical) against Latinas in the seasonal farmworker community, and visualized associations of exposure at three time points (past-month, past-12 months, and lifetime) with social network structures.

methodsData were collected from 260 Latina seasonal farmworkers in South Florida between 2015 and 2016; the data included 20 friendship networks, each with 13 participants. Chi-square and ANOVA tests describe participants' characteristics. To evaluate the total number of friendship connections (e.g., ties) an individual (e.g., node), had to the other nodes in a network, R was used to calculate degree centrality. Visone and Cytoscape software were then used to create social network visualizations for each of the sociocentric networks.

resultsNon-U.S. born respondents reported experiencing some form of abuse more often than U.S. born respondents (e.g., 69.7% vs. 13.8% for lifetime emotional abuse). Across all forms of abuse and time points, the prevalence of abuse perpetuated by husbands was the largest, except for lifetime sexual abuse, which was led by close family members (26.8% vs. 21.1%). Network visualizations show that participants who reported lifetime emotional abuse tended to cluster together in their social networks. Cases for the three forms of abuse were present in all networks.

conclusionsBy understanding how women from an undeserved population who have experienced these forms of abuse are linked through their friendship network structures, interventionalists can better identify the role of intimate partner violence in HIV/STD risk reduction interventions, targeted reproductive health approaches, and empower women to report abuse. Network visualizations can be used in process evaluations by informing how to restructure network configurations.