EVE Project: Evidence for Violence prevention in the Extreme

Project Summary 

In the world’s highest prevalence settings, two out of every three women will experience physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner or stranger in their lifetime (WHO 2013). Research on violence prevention in these settings is limited. More and better evidence is needed on the interventions that work to prevent violence in high-prevalence settings.

To improve current evidence, the EVE Project takes a multidisciplinary perspective to explore the community, national and global factors that have contributed to higher rates of violence in some parts of the world. We are looking in detail at these processes through two case studies in the Peruvian Andes and Samoa. 

In Peru and Samoa, the Eve Project is working with local indigenous communities to design a new intervention for violence prevention. We are using a new approach to community-led violence prevention developed by our team in the Peruvian Amazon, on the GAP Project.

Through involving indigenous communities affected by violence in designing their own prevention interventions, we are ensuring interventions are relevant to women’s lives, building sustainable relationships with local communities, and developing research capacity in low-resource settings. This has the potential to transform the ways in which research to prevent violence against women is done in high prevalence settings.

Key Project Information

Dates: 1 March 2020 to 31 July 2027

Principal Investigator: Prof Jenevieve Mannell

Status: Current

Partners: Samoa Victim Support Group (SVSG), National University of Samoa, HAMPI Consultoria en Salud, Samoa Fa’afafine Association

Location: Samoa and Peru

Funding: UKRI

Contact: j.mannell@ucl.ac.uk

Research outputs

Videos

Interview with PI Jenevieve Mannell

Co-developing interventions to address VAWG: practical insights from 5 projects

Podcasts

Next Generation Radio Podcast

Yale Climate Connections – Links between climate and GBV

Resources

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  Research_Project_Application_Completion_Guidance_as_of_Nov_2018.docx

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  safety_arrangements_-_changes_in_22-23.pdf

• SciDev.net Oct 10 2024 - “How extreme weather is fuelling violence against women”
• Samoa Observer August 15 2024 – “Solutions to reduce violence against women”

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  Samoa Observer June 12 2023 – “High chiefs want to end violence in homes”

• Radio Polynesia July 17 2023 – “EVE Research underway”
• Samoa Observer - "Village leaders engaged to lead violence research"
• Samoa Observer August 8 2021 – “Village elders uniting against violence under new approach”

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  Samoa Observer Sept 21 2021 – “Villages anti-violence strategy praised”

• Samoa Observer Nov 14 2020 – “Study looks in villages for gender violence answers”

• File

  SVRI Primer on Co-developing Intervention to Prevent VAWG

•  Blog post: co-developing localised ethical guidelines (2022)

Publications

Mannell, J., Tevaga, P., Apelu, L., Moananu, K., Faumuina, T., Sinclair, L., Tanielu, H., Lowe, H., Brown, L.J. and Copas, A., 2025. Is exposure to a climate-related disaster associated with recent experiences of intimate partner violence among women? A post hoc analysis of survey data from rural Samoa. BMJ Public Health, 3(1).

Lowe, H., Utumapu, F. Tevaga, P. and Mannell, J., 2024. Disability and intimate partner violence experience among women in rural Samoa: A cross-sectional analysis. Disability and Health Journal.

Mannell, J., Tevaga, P., Heinrich, S., Fruean, S., Chang, S.L., Lowe, H., Brown, L.J., Vaczy, C., Tanielu, H., Cowley-Malcolm, E. and Suaalii-Sauni, T., 2023. Love Shouldn’t Hurt–E le Sauā le Alofa: Co-designing a theory of change for preventing violence against women in Samoa. Global public health, 18(1).

Calderon, M., Cortez-Vergara, C., Brown, L., Lowe, H., Abarca, B., Rondon, M. and Mannell, J., 2023. Assessing essential service provision for prevention and management of violence against women in a remote indigenous community in Amantaní, Peru. International journal for equity in health, 22(1), p.204.

Mannell, J., Amaama, S.A., Boodoosingh, R., Brown, L., Calderon, M., Cowley-Malcolm, E., Lowe, H., Motta, A., Shannon, G., Tanielu, H. and Vergara, C.C., 2021. Decolonising violence against women research: a study design for co-developing violence prevention interventions with communities in low and middle income countries (LMICs). BMC public health, 21(1).

Lowe, H,. Mannell, J,. Faumuina, T,. Sinclair, L,. Tamanikaiyaroi, L,. Brown, L. Violence in childhood and community contexts: a multi-level model of factors associated with women's intimate partner violence experience in Samoa. The Lancet (2023).

Lowe H, Apelu L, Brown L, Tanielu H, Mannell J (2023) Mapping communities as complex adaptive systems: A study of theresponse to violence against women by communities in Samoa. PLoS ONE 18(10): e0290898. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290898

Brown, L. J., Lowe, H., Gibbs, A., Smith, C., & Mannell, J. (2023). High-Risk Contexts for Violence Against Women: Using Latent Class Analysis to Understand Structural and Contextual Drivers of Intimate Partner Violence at the National Level. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 38(1-2), 1007-1039. https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605221086642

Mannell J, Lowe H, Brown L, et al (2022) Risk factors for violence against women in high-prevalence settings: a mixed-methods systematic review and meta-synthesis BMJ Global Health;7:e007704.

Lowe H, Brown L, Ahmad A, Daruwalla N, Gram L, Osrin D, Panchal K, Watson D, Zimmerman C, Mannell J. Mechanisms for community prevention of violence against women in low- and middle-income countries: A realist approach to a comparative analysis of qualitative data. Soc Sci Med. 2022 Jul;305:115064. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.115064. Epub 2022 May 25. PMID: 35653892; PMCID: PMC7614855.