New findings from a large, longitudinal study of women in the U.S. has found that women who had ever experienced sexual violence in their lives - including sexual assault and workplace sexual harassment - were more likely to acquire high blood pressure during a seven-year period.
Sexual violence was a common occurrence for more than 20% of the women in the study, according to the report, which was financed by the National Institutes of Health and published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
"Our results showed that women who reported experiencing both sexual assault and workplace sexual harassment had the highest risk of hypertension, suggesting potential compounding effects of multiple sexual violence exposures on women's cardiovascular health," Rebecca B. Lawn, Ph.D., the study's lead author said.
According to the study, people who were sexually harassed at work were 15% more likely to have high blood pressure, while those who were sexually assaulted were 11% more likely to have hypertension.
Even after the researchers controlled for other health habits and diseases, these relationships remained. The researchers discovered conflicting correlations between non-sexual traumatic experiences and high blood pressure across multiple analyses.
The researchers add that the risk for high blood pressure associated with lifetime sexual violence is comparable in magnitude to other factors that have gotten more attention, such as childhood or adolescent sexual abuse, sleep duration, and exposure to environmental contaminants.
Around 23% of the women in the research had been sexually assaulted, 12% had been sexually harassed at work, and 6% had both. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S., one in three women and one in four men have suffered sexual violence including physical touching.
Gay, lesbian, and bisexual people, as well as other groups such as those with developmental disabilities, may be more vulnerable to sexual assault.
The limitation of the hypertension study was that it only looked at data from women in the same profession (nursing), the majority of whom were white. However, the study included other types of trauma in addition to sexual assault, reinforcing the link between sexual trauma and hypertension.
High blood pressure increases your risk of heart disease and stroke, which are the two main causes of death in the U.S., according to the CDC. However, this is not the first study to show the impact of sexual assault on health and fitness.
Sexual assault has been linked to both short- and long-term health repercussions, including sleep problems and mental health disorders.
Sexual assault survivors are also more likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder, which has been related to a variety of health issues, including cognitive deterioration.
