For women, ill health, abuse tied, study finds
LONDON -- Women who are physically abused by a partner face a similar legacy of health problems whether they live in a modern city in the industrialized world or a traditional village in a developing country, the first global study on domestic violence has found.
In interviews with 24,000 women in 10 countries, researchers found that while there are wide variations in the rate of women experiencing sexual or other physical abuse at the hands of their partners, victims are about twice as likely as other women to suffer ill health -- and the effect seems to persist long after the violence has stopped.
The study -- conducted by the World Health Organization in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and PATH, a global health organization -- is a landmark, said former UN Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson.
''It tells a story that unfortunately is universal," said Robinson, who was not connected with the research. ''Violence by intimate partners is one of the most serious challenges to women's health."
Countries included in the study, released Thursday, were: Brazil, Ethiopia, Japan, Namibia, Peru, Samoa, Serbia and Montenegro, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Tanzania.
North America and Western Europe were not included because earlier studies had already examined the situation there.
In the WHO study, rates varied between 15 percent of women having been a victim of domestic violence during their lifetimes in Japan to 71 percent in Ethiopia.
Previous research has found rates of about 20 percent in the United States and Sweden and 23 percent in Canada and Britain, said one of the researchers, Lori Heise of PATH.
Even though the lifetime risk of violence was similar in many nations, women in developed countries were less likely to be currently suffering abuse than were women in developing countries.
The percentage of women who had been attacked by their partners in the preceding year was 4 percent in Japan and in Serbia and Montenegro, compared with between 30 percent and 54 percent in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Peru, and Tanzania.
The study found that the health impact of domestic violence went well beyond injuries.
Women who had experienced physical or sexual violence by a partner at some point during their lives were more likely to report poor general health at the time of the interview, the study found.
They were more likely to have pain, dizziness, gynecological conditions and mental health problems. They were more likely to have considered or attempted suicide and they were more likely to have had a miscarriage or an induced abortion, said the study's coordinator, Dr. Claudia Garcia-Moreno of the World Health Organization.
