Speaker 1: Justa heads up. Today's episode contains distressing themes, including intimate
Speaker 1: partner violence and suicide. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: Already and this this is the Daily ARS.
Speaker 1: This is the Daily ohs oh, now it makes sense.
Speaker 1: Good morning, and welcome to the Daily ODS. It's Friday,
Speaker 1: the sixth of June. I'm Emma Gillespie, I'm Lucy Tassel.
Speaker 1: More than one in three men report using intimate partner violence,
Speaker 1: which is any behavior in an intimate relationship that causes physical, sexual,
Speaker 1: or psychological harm, while an estimated one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: thousand men nationally each year start to use it for
Speaker 1: the first time. That's according to a government backed study
Speaker 1: known as ten to Men, a research initiative that measures
Speaker 1: mental health and wellbeing, paternal relationships, demographics, social support and
Speaker 1: life satisfaction.
Speaker 2: Launched in twenty thirteen, Ten to Men is the largest
Speaker 2: longitudinal study on male health globally, with a total cohort
Speaker 2: of twenty four thousand men involved.
Speaker 1: Today.
Speaker 2: Its program lead doctor Sean Martin from the Australian Institute
Speaker 2: of Family Studies says these findings provide a set of
Speaker 2: risk factors to help support the development of effective policies
Speaker 2: and programs for young men.
Speaker 1: Sean is a clinical epidemiologist with over twenty years experience
Speaker 1: in men's health related research, and he joins us now
Speaker 1: to talk about these findings. Doctor Sean Martin, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: We are talking, of course today about the data from
Speaker 1: the Ten to Men report this week, a really comprehensive
Speaker 1: study into the use of intimate partner violence among Australian men.
Speaker 1: But before we get into the findings, I'd be really
Speaker 1: interested to hear your involvement in the study, how the
Speaker 1: data was collected. What do we need to know about
Speaker 1: this report?
Speaker 4: Sure, well, I'm the program lead for the study, have
Speaker 4: been for the past three years or so, but I've
Speaker 4: been involved in men's health really for over twenty years now,
Speaker 4: so I have some familiarity with both the content and
Speaker 4: the field in general. But in terms of ten to Men,
Speaker 4: it's really the largest longitudinal study of male health in
Speaker 4: the world at this point. In terms of this specific report,
Speaker 4: what we did was when the guys were recruited back
Speaker 4: in twenty thirteen and fourteen, we asked them, as we
Speaker 4: always do, a series of measures. One of them was
Speaker 4: around intimate partner violence, and at that point, around one
Speaker 4: in four men reported having ever used any form of
Speaker 4: intimate partner violence. And so this report demonstrates that when
Speaker 4: we last assess these guys back in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 4: that estimate had increased to over one in three thirty
Speaker 4: five percent. Our study, by design is meant to represent
Speaker 4: the broader Australian population that they're drawn from. So when
Speaker 4: we took the estimates from this report and applied it
Speaker 4: to the Australian population that it quates to around about
Speaker 4: one hundred and twenty thousand men per year using these
Speaker 4: types of behavior for the first time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's a pretty startling number for a
Speaker 1: lot of people who might not be as familiar with
Speaker 1: this space and the prevalence of intimate partner violence. But
Speaker 1: of course that term represents a whole range of different
Speaker 1: forms of violence. What are we talking about when we're
Speaker 1: talking about intimate partner abuse? What can you tell us
Speaker 1: about these different forms and what the study found about
Speaker 1: their prevalence.
Speaker 4: Sure, so we used a measure called the Coosa measure,
Speaker 4: which is one of the only measures that was validated
Speaker 4: or tested for use in men at the time back
Speaker 4: in twenty thirteen fourteen. There's since mostly been a really
Speaker 4: increase in the measures that covers a whole range of
Speaker 4: these types of behaviors that are covered under the umbrella
Speaker 4: of intimate partner violence. But for us, we're talking specifically
Speaker 4: about emotional type violence. So our guys sent a series
Speaker 4: of questions around those types of behaviors as well as
Speaker 4: physical type violence and sexual type violence. So they collectively
Speaker 4: focused around the use of intimate partner violence.
Speaker 3: In the case of this.
Speaker 1: Report, how did the study account for these boys and
Speaker 1: men self identifying those behaviors versus a potential kind of
Speaker 1: lack of keenness to disclose maybe some more concerning behaviors.
Speaker 1: What was the kind of self awareness like in that process.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a really important question.
Speaker 4: The first thing we always do is make sure that
Speaker 4: we do use these excuse me, validated measures that have
Speaker 4: been tested for these sorts of issues.
Speaker 3: So some of those issues.
Speaker 4: Are like the test recall by so whether or not
Speaker 4: people consistently report that the same sorts of measures across time.
Speaker 4: Another thing we can do as a study is treat
Speaker 4: really seriously the privacy and confidentiality of our respondents. None
Speaker 4: of our respondents are able to be identified personally. The
Speaker 4: information that they provide us is safe, it's secure. They
Speaker 4: know that in providing that information they don't put themselves
Speaker 4: or their families at risk or at harm, and we
Speaker 4: make sure that they know of that and they're confident
Speaker 4: around that because we do ask a range of sensitive information,
Speaker 4: including intimate partner violence, so we need to be really
Speaker 4: consistent in making sure we dedicate some efforts to that area.
Speaker 4: And also too, I guess as we go along we
Speaker 4: build some trust with our participants, so we're able to
Speaker 4: have trust ourselves in the validity of the data.
Speaker 3: We've done a lot.
Speaker 4: Of work in making sure that the information that we
Speaker 4: do is extracted is as accurate as possible.
Speaker 1: The study also looks at men's mental health, providing this
Speaker 1: longitudinal snapshot of mental health. What were the standout findings
Speaker 1: in that topic area. Is there a relationship between poor
Speaker 1: mental health and intimate partner violence?
Speaker 4: Yes, there is a very strong one. Actually, it's one
Speaker 4: of our strongest predictors. So when we looked again at
Speaker 4: our men, those that had clinically significant depressive symptoms were
Speaker 4: much more likely to report intimate partner violence later on.
Speaker 4: Down the track and again when we looked at suicidality.
Speaker 4: So unfortunately, men who might have had suicidal thoughts or
Speaker 4: plans or even attempts, they were all sort of significant
Speaker 4: risk of later use of intimate partner violence. But we
Speaker 4: were also interested in identifying some protective factors, so we
Speaker 4: looked particularly at social connectedness. So that's a respondent's sense
Speaker 4: of connection to friends, to families, and also their community.
Speaker 4: And those men who reported higher levels of social connection
Speaker 4: were actually much less likely to use intimate partner violence.
Speaker 4: And also, and I think uniquely for our study, we're
Speaker 4: Arabi demonstrate that people who report at a very high
Speaker 4: level of paternal affection, so we use it again and
Speaker 4: other validated measures called the paternal affection score. Those men
Speaker 4: that had a high level of paternal affection were at
Speaker 4: a much reduced level of risk for using intimate partner
Speaker 4: violence in their adult life. In fact, their risk was
Speaker 4: almost half.
Speaker 1: So we'll be back with today's deep dive right after this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was really interested in the findings around men and
Speaker 1: their relationships with their fathers and the role that plays
Speaker 1: in intimate partner violence. Also the data around well being
Speaker 1: and social connection that you've touched on men who were
Speaker 1: in the two in three who had not reported intimate
Speaker 1: partner violence. What were the key points that differentiated their
Speaker 1: outcomes as opposed to the one in three men who
Speaker 1: did report intimate partner violence.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, it's a great question.
Speaker 4: So I mean, first of all, we did some sort
Speaker 4: of descriptive analyses, so we looked at some of the
Speaker 4: age differences of a range of other what's called priority
Speaker 4: population groups, and essentially that there was no differences between
Speaker 4: those groups.
Speaker 3: The sort of tie brows equally amongst.
Speaker 4: All of those groups, if you like, So not too
Speaker 4: many differences there.
Speaker 3: The differences were really sort of concentrated on those.
Speaker 4: Risk factors that have just spoken about, so around mental health,
Speaker 4: around paternal affection, and around social connections. So yeah, as
Speaker 4: I say, these types of studies are relatively new in
Speaker 4: terms of using longitudinal analyses to I guess, predict what
Speaker 4: factors may prevent these sorts of behaviors. But they're certainly
Speaker 4: a couple of key ones we've been able to identify beforehand,
Speaker 4: and hopefully they will be able to be used to
Speaker 4: inform some targeted prevention strategies to try to, as I say,
Speaker 4: minimize the rise of this type of behavior and in
Speaker 4: fact try to reduce it's.
Speaker 1: Importantly, were there any trends around inequality? You know, does
Speaker 1: a person's kind of demographic socioeconomic status does that play
Speaker 1: a role in intimate partner violence or do these findings
Speaker 1: suggest that this is an indiscriminate issue.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, great question.
Speaker 4: In terms of I guess socio economic factors, we're really
Speaker 4: keen to take a deep dive look at those into
Speaker 4: the future. Decades of research that have identified the key
Speaker 4: roles that some of those factors might play, like also
Speaker 4: relationship issues like previous abuse people might have suffered, like
Speaker 4: alcohol and other drug usage. It's a whole range of issues. Mercifully,
Speaker 4: we have a lot of data around that, so we're
Speaker 4: very keen to sort of explore that further. And as
Speaker 4: I mentioned before and in future ways, we'll be trying
Speaker 4: to expand our measures so we can have a comprehensive
Speaker 4: view of how these behaviors arise.
Speaker 1: What's the path forward now that we have this research.
Speaker 1: What will it mean in terms of supporting men to
Speaker 1: develop healthier relationships in their families with their partners, as
Speaker 1: well as encouraging them to seek support to reduce rates
Speaker 1: of intimate partner violence. What are the next steps?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Okay, first of all, I've got to acknowledge we
Speaker 4: are but one study, and so others will also be
Speaker 4: looking at this area and we'll learn from their approaches
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 3: In terms of what we all do. As I mentioned before, we've.
Speaker 4: Just completed our most recent wave, that is, the data
Speaker 4: from that is coming to our fieldwork provider to us,
Speaker 4: and so we'll be in a position to start to
Speaker 4: look at these sorts of issues by the end of
Speaker 4: the year, and we'll do so with our friends and
Speaker 4: colleagues within government and outside of government. We'll also be
Speaker 4: looking to expand our measures for our next wave and
Speaker 4: hopefully future waves to start to really get to understand
Speaker 4: some of those issues. But I guess, in terms of
Speaker 4: a question around you know, what we do to address
Speaker 4: some of these risk factors, like, for instance, mental health,
Speaker 4: where there's a lot of conversations at the moment occurring
Speaker 4: around mental health and specifically men's mental health.
Speaker 3: I think some of.
Speaker 4: Those some of those support services, those interventions are already
Speaker 4: in place, and so I guess to some extent the
Speaker 4: jury is still out on the effectiveness of those now
Speaker 4: the focus from a research perspective is really focusing on
Speaker 4: what works and making sure that people, when they do
Speaker 4: recognize these sorts of issues, are able to get support
Speaker 4: and able to get appropriate support, and able to get
Speaker 4: time and support to reduce intomate partner violence.
Speaker 3: Also to for.
Speaker 4: Social connection where there's a great range of online and
Speaker 4: other emerging initiatives that men and young men in particular
Speaker 4: can engage with, and likewise for parents. You know, as
Speaker 4: a society, obviously we've shifted to a space where men
Speaker 4: and young men in particular are often the primary caregivers.
Speaker 3: As a government and also other.
Speaker 4: Errors is often not those levels of support that people
Speaker 4: and young men need in that critical period of their life,
Speaker 4: and that's also sort of emerging as well, So hopefully
Speaker 4: we will start to see the effects of those shortly.
Speaker 1: You've obviously been very deep in the trenches of navigating
Speaker 1: this data, compiling these findings, sharing them with the world.
Speaker 1: Now the report's been out for a few days. What's
Speaker 1: the response been like. Has it surprised you? Have there
Speaker 1: been any sort of key findings that people have really
Speaker 1: paid attention to that you weren't expecting.
Speaker 4: It's been a great response, really by and large, I
Speaker 4: understand the point of view that this data will be
Speaker 4: will be confronting to a lot of people. You know, again,
Speaker 4: there's not much data like this that's out there. These
Speaker 4: are lifetime estimates, so they are naturally higher than say
Speaker 4: annual incident data or data that occurs every sort of
Speaker 4: a couple of years. But nevertheless they're high in our
Speaker 4: reports suggests that they're increasing. So it's a challenge for
Speaker 4: us as a sector. It's a challenge for us really
Speaker 4: as a community, is how we address those From a
Speaker 4: government perspective, They've invested very heavily in the National Plan
Speaker 4: to End Violence against Women and Children. My hope and
Speaker 4: the hope of others is this is sort of a
Speaker 4: high water mark and we will start to see those
Speaker 4: rates begin to decline with our data and with others
Speaker 4: that are sort of coming online shortly. It's obviously, as
Speaker 4: you know, the Prime Minister himself and others have common
Speaker 4: in a bit of what it is a national crist
Speaker 4: so it's spawned a lot of activity. We're very keen
Speaker 4: to continue to learn from others, work collaboratively with others,
Speaker 4: and hopefully ultimately our job is to provide evidence that
Speaker 4: can provide targeted intervention to try to reduce the levels
Speaker 4: that we're seeing out there.
Speaker 3: In the community.
Speaker 2: That's all we've got time for today. Thanks to doctor
Speaker 2: Sean Martin for joining us to go through those findings.
Speaker 2: If this episode has raised any concerns for you, help
Speaker 2: is available via Lifeline on thirteen eleven fourteen. For domestic,
Speaker 2: family and sexual violence counseling information and support. Please contact
Speaker 2: one eight hundred Respect on one eight hundred seven three
Speaker 2: seven seven three to two or head to one eight
Speaker 2: hundred respect dot org dot au.
Speaker 1: We will pop some resources in the show notes. There'll
Speaker 1: be some links there if you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about these support services, and if you'd like to read
Speaker 1: the report that we talked through today, we will also
Speaker 1: pop that in the episode description.
Speaker 2: We'll be back this evening with the headlines.
Speaker 4: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 4: Bunjelung Calkatin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
Speaker 4: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Speaker 4: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and torrest
Speaker 4: Rate island and nations.
Speaker 2: We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
Speaker 2: both past and present,