The Stepping Stones and Creating Futures intervention to prevent intimate partner violence and HIV-risk behaviours in Durban, South Africa: study protocol for a cluster randomized control trial, and baseline characteristics

Preventing intimate partner violence (IPV) remains a global public health challenge. Studies suggest urban informal settlements have particularly high levels of IPV and HIV-prevalence and these settlements are rapidly growing. The current evidence base of effective approaches to preventing IPV recognizes the potential of combining economic strengthening and gender transformative interventions. However, few of these interventions have been done in urban informal settlements, and almost none have included men as direct recipients of these interventions.