Cumulative abuse: do things add up? An evaluation of the conceptualization, operationalization, and methodological approaches in the study of the phenomenon of cumulative abuse

Abstract

For women, any one type of abuse rarely occurs in isolation of other types, and a single abusive experience is often the exception rather than the norm. The importance of this concept of the cumulative nature of abuse and its negative impact on health has been well recognized within the empirical literature, however there has been little consensus on what to call this phenomenon or how to study it. For the most part researchers have operated on the premise that it is the sheer number of different types of cumulating abuse experiences that is primarily responsible for worse health outcomes among women. And although this simplistic 'more is worse' approach to conceptualizing and operationalizing cumulative abuse has proven to be a powerful predictor of poorer health, it contradicts growing empirical evidence that suggests not all victimizations are created equal and that some victimizations may have a more deleterious effect on health than others. Embedded in abuse histories are individual and abuse characteristics as well as other life adversities that need to be considered in order to fully understand the spectrum and magnitude of cumulative abuse and its impact on women's health. Furthermore, given the long-term and persistent effects of abuse on health it becomes imperative to not only evaluate recent abusive experiences, but rather all abuse experiences occurring across the lifespan. This review highlights and evaluates the conceptual, operational, and methodological challenges posed by our current methods of studying and understanding the phenomenon of cumulative abuse and suggests that this phenomenon and its relationship to health is much more complex than research is currently portraying. This paper calls for the urgent need for interdisciplinary collaboration in order to more effectively and innovatively study the phenomenon of cumulative abuse.