Exploring the spatiotemporal effects of domestic violence in Puerto Rico during the COVID-19 period: a geographically and temporally weighted regression approach

Domestic violence is an epidemic with profound impacts on both the mental and physical well-being of victims. In Puerto Rico, reported cases have risen rapidly in recent years, particularly after the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Despite its urgency, domestic violence remains understudied in the context of spatial information science, with limited research exploring how its relationship with sociodemographic factors varies across space and time. This study addresses this gap by investigating the spatiotemporal effects of domestic violence in Puerto Rico from 2020 to 2022, the COVID-19 pandemic period using geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR). Police-reported domestic violence data from the thirteen police regions of Puerto Rico showed a decline in 2020. Following the COVID-19 lockdown measures and mobility restrictions, it remains unknown whether this reduction is due to disruptions in reporting access and service availability or a decrease in underlying domestic violence. Results revealed statistically significant spatial clustering of police-reported domestic violence at the police-region level, with San Juan and Bayamón emerging as persistent hotspots. The female population showed strong positive associations (GTWR coefficients ranging from 0.5 to >1.0 across Puerto Rico), while separated populations exhibited moderate to strong positive relationships (0.25 to >1.0), with localized negative associations observed in the regions Aguadilla and Mayaguez. However, the population with moderate income stress demonstrated strong negative associations (coefficients < -1.0). These spatially varying relationships were not captured by the global ordinary least squares model(OLS). Overall, GTWR improved model fit (Δ Adj. R 2 = 0.0907). These results show that socioeconomic associations with domestic violence are spatially and temporally non-stationary, and can help public health officials prioritize region-specific prevention and intervention strategies to guide the effective allocation of public health resources in Puerto Rico.