Oct 28, 2026
Dr. Amy Fitzgerald is a co-investigator on a WE-SPARK funded project examining extreme weather and intimate partner violence
(MICHAEL WILKINS/University of Windsor)
Extreme heat, flooding and poor air quality can threaten more than physical health.
For people experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV), these conditions may also increase risks and make it harder to seek help.
A team of researchers that includes UWindsor faculty and alumni is investigating how extreme weather may affect IPV in Windsor-Essex, an area they say has received limited attention in local research.
Supported by a grant from WE-SPARK Health Institute, the project aims to better understand these risks and help community organizations prepare for the impacts of extreme weather.
"This project emerged from recognizing an important intersection between environmental stressors and IPV, both in terms of what we were seeing in our community and a gap in the existing local research," says principal investigator Amy Peirone, a UWindsor alumna.
"Bringing together a team with complementary areas of expertise and strong community connections creates an opportunity to explore that intersection in a meaningful way."
Peirone earned her PhD in sociology, specializing in social justice, at UWindsor.
Co-investigator Dr. Amy Fitzgerald, a professor of criminology at UWindsor who also holds a hybrid appointment with the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research (GLIER), says the project addresses an overlooked aspect of the relationship between environmental conditions and human health.
“We know that environmental degradation negatively impacts human health, but there’s not as much attention to what it does as far as impacting human vulnerability to violence,” says Fitzgerald.
“The health consequences of violence are significant, so this project will be important for teasing these aspects apart.”
Fitzgerald specializes in green criminology, examining environmental and animal harms and their connections to crime, including IPV.
The research team also includes UWindsor alumna Dr. Jane MacArthur of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and Betty Barrett, a professor in UWindsor's School of Social Work.
Fitzgerald credits WE-SPARK Health Institute for supporting research that recognizes the connections between physical, social and public health.
“It’s great to have an organization that is doing such important work and takes such a broad view of what health is,” Fitzgerald says. “More than just physiological health but also social health and public health, because those multidisciplinary engagements are really important.”
“We’re looking at a complicated intersection of environmental factors and social factors to see what happens when the environment changes in important ways,” says Fitzgerald, who notes that the research is particularly timely as climate-related risks intensify.
The researchers say Windsor-Essex presents a particularly important setting for the study because of its exposure to extreme heat, flooding and air-quality concerns.
“There are some weather events that we are more likely to get here like the extreme heat, the flooding, significant air-quality issues,” says Fitzgerald. “The wildfire smoke compounds with the poor air quality that we already have, and that can drive people indoors.”
For people experiencing IPV, spending more time indoors with an abusive partner may increase their exposure to harm. Weather-related disruptions, including school closures on fog days, may also affect household routines and opportunities to seek support.
“The impact is also related to help-seeking behaviour,” Fitzgerald explains.
“It can restrict the ability of individuals to get to a shelter or another source of help they’re trying to reach out to, and in some cases with increased displacement because of an environmental event or natural disaster, that can exacerbate violence.”
To better understand these challenges locally, the researchers have partnered with Sylvie Guenther, executive director of Hiatus House, a Windsor organization supporting people affected by intimate partner violence.
“Having someone who has that frontline experience is critical, not just for facilitating access to data but because sometimes there are phenomena on the ground that as researchers we’re not attuned to but those on the frontlines are,” says Fitzgerald.
The partnership will help connect the research with frontline experience and support the sharing of findings with organizations that serve IPV survivors.
Fitzgerald hopes the findings will help community organizations anticipate how extreme weather could affect demand for services and access to support, allowing them to better prepare for future events.
The findings could also inform government policy and funding decisions, including support for organizations serving IPV survivors.
“We want to really get a picture of what’s going on locally so that we can try to build resilience into the system,” Fitzgerald says.
By Kate Hargreaves
Courtesy: https://www.uwindsor.ca/news/2026-10-27/uwindsor-researchers-examine-link-between-extreme-weather-and-intimate-partner-violence
