The Role of Formal Schooling, Literacy, and Health Knowledge in Addressing Domestic Violence Against Women in West Africa.

When "education" is cited as a solution for domestic violence, different aspects of knowledge acquisition are often omitted. This study uses 2019 Demographic and Health Surveys from four West African countries (The Gambia, Liberia, Senegal, Sierra Leone) with a combined sample size of 12,480 women and generalized ordered logit regression to examine the effects of types of knowledge (years of schooling, literacy, and health knowledge) on domestic violence (physical abuse, emotional abuse, and control issues). The results suggest that literacy has the most reliable beneficial impact on domestic violence and was consistently associated with decreased odds of abuse. However, greater findings suggest that schooling, literacy, and health knowledge function as separate types of education and that their relationships are complex and context-specific. By neglecting to see these types of knowledge as separate entities that can operate together, it is possible that mitigation strategies for domestic violence are going undiscovered.