Mapping Relationships Among Organizations Offering Intimate Partner Violence Services in a Kenyan Informal Settlement: A Social Network Analysis
Name: Armine Kalbakian
School: Mailman School of Public Health, Class of 2024
Mentor: Christine Musyimi, PhD and Kathleen Pike, PhD, MA
Abstract
Research Question: What are the different inter-organizational relationships among various organizations offering IPV services in Kibera, Kenya?
Background: Intimate partner violence is a global human rights issue with far-reaching impacts on public health. In Kenya, IPV prevalence ranges between 45% to 68% (Mugoya et al., 2015). Informal settlements, such as Nairobi’s Kibera Slum, have higher prevalence than the rest of the country (Ringwald et al., 2022).
Though multi-sectoral responses are promising means of addressing IPV (Swart, 2012; Winter et al., 2020), there is limited research on existing collaborations among organizations offering IPV services in Kibera. Mapping these relationships could strengthen organizations’ capacity to empower women and reduce stigma, thereby leading to greater reporting, overriding past underestimates of IPV prevalence and low policy prioritization.
Methods: Data from an inter-organizational questionnaire administered to 31 organizations offering IPV services in Kibera were analyzed on UCINet. Social network analysis generated centralization measures for full integration, partnership, collaboration, coordination, cooperation, and communication networks. Descriptive statistics were generated on SPSS.
Results: The “Communication” and “Cooperation” networks had the highest number of ties, average degree, network density, and degree centralization. The “Partnership” network had the lowest centrality measures. The organizations with the highest out-degree centralization were CBO/NGOs, and those with the highest in-degree centralization were a large NGO and local police. The aforementioned NGO also had the highest betweenness centrality score indicating its gatekeeping role.
Conclusions: The lower centrality measures of more integrated networks indicates that efforts to strengthen inter-organizational relationships would be beneficial in expanding IPV service delivery to victims. Organizations with higher centrality measures may be instrumental figures in fostering future growth of integrated connections.