Asian Immigrants' Experience of Intimate Partner Violence Victimization and Help-Seeking Behaviors

Background/Purpose: Asian immigrants are at a greater risk of experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization due to acculturative stress and cultural expectations to put family interests before their own (Cho et al., 2024). Such risk factors, on top of patriarchal gender norms which reinforce stigma toward IPV, also become barriers for survivors to seek help (e.g., Cho et al., 2024; Li et al., 2022; Tavrow et al., 2023). While there has been increased attention to Asian immigrants’ IPV in social work research, still little empirical knowledge exists on their help-seeking behaviors. This study explored the types of IPV victimization Asian immigrants experienced and their help-seeking behaviors. The study also examined the effects of multiple IPV victimization experiences and perceived level of myths toward IPV on Asian IPV survivors’ helping-seeking behaviors.

Methods: We used anonymous survey data collected in 2024 involving Chinese (n=104) and Koreans (n=368) residents in the Greater Washington D.C. area. Among these 472 participants, this study focused on 78 (16.5%) respondents who reported having ever experienced any type of IPV. Descriptive analyses were mainly used while bivariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to investigate factors associated with help-seeking behavior.

Results: In the study, the most common type of IPV was emotional violence (n=69, 88.5%), followed by verbal (n=65, 83.3%), physical (n=46, 59.0%), and financial (n=43, 55.1%) violence. Most survivors experienced multiple types of IPV (n=65, 83.3%). While many participants with a history of IPV victimization (n=56, 71.8%) reported having sought help, some participants were still in a relationship with a perpetrator (n=28, 35.9%). When seeking help, social service agencies (n=40, 71.4%) and religious/spiritual advisors (n=31, 55.4%) were most frequently relied on resources. Those who did not seek help noted that their limited knowledge of available resources (n=11, 50.0%), and concerns for family stability (n=8, 36.4%) and financial independence (n=7, 31.8%) were the primary reasons for not seeking help. Bivariate analyses showed that those who experienced multiple types of IPV and those who held myths at lower levels were more likely to seek help. In the logistic regression analyses, the effect of IPV myths became insignificant while the effect of multiple types of IPV remained significant (B=.78, p<.01). Among the control variables, participants’ English proficiency was significantly associated with help-seeking behaviors (B=.59, p<.05).

Conclusion/Implications: The present study contributes to building knowledge in the fields of social work and IPV. Our findings highlight the importance of community education and outreach to eliminate myths about IPV and increase awareness of IPV services. These efforts are especially crucial for Asian survivors to actively seek help early on to reduce any further harm from IPV, considering that they are more likely to seek help when faced with multiple types of IPV. Furthermore, our findings echo other IPV research regarding immigrant survivors’ needs to strengthen language accessibility for Koreans and Chinese to more easily access IPV professional help sources (Cho et al., 2024; Li et al., 2022).