JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

The COVID-19 pandemic has created environments with increased risk factors for household violence, like unemployment and financial uncertainty. At the same time, it has hindered traditional violence measures and led to the introduction of policies to mitigate financial uncertainty.

Objective:

To determine if there were excess Google searches related to child abuse victimization, child-witnessed IPV, and intimate partner violence (IPV) during the COVID-19 pandemic and if any excesses are temporally related to shelter-in-place and economic policies.

Methods:

Data on relative search volume for each violence measure was extracted using the Google Health Trends Application for each week in 2017-2020 for the United States. Using linear regression with restricted cubic splines, we analyzed data from 2017 to 2019 to characterize seasonal variation shared across pre-pandemic years. Parameters from pre-pandemic years were used to predict the expected number of Google searches and 95% prediction intervals (PI) for each week in 2020. Weeks with searches above the upper bound of the prediction interval are in excess of the model’s prediction.

Results:

Relative search volume for child abuse victimization was greater than expected in 2020, with 19% of weeks falling above the upper PI. These excesses in searches began a month after the pandemic unemployment compensation program ended. Relative search volume was also heightened in 2020 for child-witnessed IPV, with 33% of the weeks following above the upper bound of the PI. This increase occurred after the introduction of shelter-in-place.

Conclusions:

Social and financial disruptions, common consequences of major disasters, may increase risks for child abuse and child-witnessed of IPV.