Intimate partner violence and women's tobacco use in Nigeria: Leveraging national data systems for substance use research in Africa

Background Substance use research in Africa is shifting from consumption patterns towards the social contexts that shape health-related risk behaviours. Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been linked to psychological distress and maladaptive coping, yet African evidence on its relationship with women's tobacco use remains scarce. Methods Guided by the stress and coping perspective, a cross-sectional analysis was conducted using the domestic violence subsample of the 2024 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey, comprising 5,458 partnered women aged 15 to 49 years. Current tobacco use was the outcome and IPV the main explanatory variable. Chi-square tests and binary logistic regression yielded crude and adjusted odds ratios (AORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs), supplemented by a penalised-likelihood sensitivity analysis. Analyses were unweighted. Results The sample prevalence of IPV was 25.10% and that of current tobacco use 0.55% (30 women). After adjustment, women who had experienced any IPV had about three times the odds of tobacco use (AOR 3.14, 95% CI [1.52, 6.52]). Physical IPV (AOR 3.20, 95% CI [1.48, 6.95]) and emotional IPV (AOR 2.80, 95% CI [1.34, 5.82]) were each associated with tobacco use; the estimate for sexual IPV was imprecise and not statistically significant. Employment was associated with lower odds of tobacco use. Penalised estimation left the crude association essentially unchanged. Conclusions IPV is associated with tobacco use among partnered women in Nigeria, although the cross-sectional design, the unweighted analysis and the small number of tobacco users preclude causal or national inference. The findings support enquiry about violence, with referral, in women's health services, trauma-informed cessation support in tobacco control, and links from both to mental health care. The study is among the first to relate IPV to women's tobacco use in the 2024 survey and shows the value of national data systems for substance use research in West Africa.