Social determinants of violence against women and associated health consequences in Latin America and the Caribbean: a scoping review – Psychiatry AI: Real-Time AI Scoping Review

AI Summary

Violence against women is socially patterned and structurally embedded: economic inequality, poverty, educational differentials, racialised hierarchies and territorial marginalisation increase risk.
Intermediary determinants provide pathways: partner alcohol use, relationship instability, childhood exposure to violence and neighbourhood deprivation mediate structural risks.
Violence yields substantial cumulative health harms, including depression, anxiety, PTSD, suicidal ideation, adverse maternal outcomes, reduced prenatal care and increased cardiovascular risk.

TL;DR (AI Generated)

The findings indicate that violence against women in Latin America and the Caribbean constitutes a continuum of social and health inequality shaped by interacting structural and intermediary determinants.

By organizing the regional evidence through a social determinants framework and incorporating an intersectional lens, this review advances a structurally grounded synthesis that clarifies how violence becomes socially produced and biologically embodied across the life course.

Basic summary

Cad Saude Publica. 2026 Oct 30;42:e00048426. doi: 10.1590/0102-311XEN048426. eCollection 2026.

ABSTRACT

This scoping review examines how social determinants of health have been conceptualized and analyzed in relation to violence against women and its physical and mental health consequences in Latin America and the Caribbean. A structured bilingual search was conducted in PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, and SciELO for studies published between 2012 and 2025. In total, 82 empirical studies met eligibility criteria. Data were synthesized using a framework that distinguishes structural determinants, such as income inequality, racialized hierarchies, territorial segregation, gender norms, and labor precarity, from intermediary determinants, including age, relationship status, partner behaviors, material conditions, and social capital. The evidence demonstrates that violence against women in the region is socially patterned and structurally embedded. Economic inequality, poverty, and educational differentials within couples were consistently associated with exposure to violence, while intersecting systems of skin color, ethnicity, and territorial marginalization amplified risk. Intermediary mechanisms – including alcohol use, relational instability, childhood exposure to violence, and neighborhood deprivation – provided pathways linking these structural conditions to violence exposure. Health consequences were substantial and cumulative. Violence was strongly associated with depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress symptoms, suicidal ideation, adverse maternal outcomes, reduced prenatal care utilization, and markers of cardiovascular risk. The findings indicate that violence against women in Latin America and the Caribbean constitutes a continuum of social and health inequality shaped by interacting structural and intermediary determinants. By organizing the regional evidence through a social determinants framework and incorporating an intersectional lens, this review advances a structurally grounded synthesis that clarifies how violence becomes socially produced and biologically embodied across the life course.

PMID:42987099 | PMC:PMC13722036 | DOI:10.1590/0102-311XEN048426

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