BRAVE-WOW’s Work Package 2 is currently conducting a thorough review of the existing literature on gender-based violence and harassment (GBVH) in healthcare settings. This task, led by University of Évora, aims to identify what has been established so far and what remains inconsistently addressed in the academic field. A core objective of this review is to critically evaluate how GBVH in healthcare settings has been conceptualised, measured, and what types of interventions have been successfully implemented.
Firstly, we aim to identify the current definitions and theoretical frameworks proposed to understand and explain GBVH, with particular attention to the tools used to measure the phenomenon. We also seek to describe the behaviours regarded as GBVH, its antecedents and consequences, as well as the outcomes of the interventions implemented to reduce the occurrence of these behaviours.
A preliminary analysis of literature reviews reveals some important gaps that our review aims to address, including instrumental heterogeneity, limited gender responsiveness, challenges in assessing interventions, and conceptual fragmentation, as theoretical frameworks are inconsistently applied due to different GBVH definitions used across studies.
The next step is to perform an in-depth analysis of the literature that will culminate in a comprehensive synthesis of findings, offering conceptual and methodological clarification to support future work in the field of GBVH in healthcare.
As such, this review aims to strengthen the theoretical and empirical foundations upon which policies and interventions can be built to contribute to the broader goal of the BRAVE-WOW project: promoting safer and more equitable workplaces in the healthcare sector and creating more responsive and better-prepared work environments to address gender-based violence and harassment.
