Women who have experienced sexual violence are more likely to develop high blood pressure over a seven-year follow-up period, research suggests.
The research, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, also found that workplace sexual harassment was linked to an increased risk of hypertension.
Lead author Doctor Rebecca B. Lawn, of the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, said:
“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.”
Researchers used the Nurses’ Health Study II (NHS II) of 115,000 adult women in the US that began in 1989.
As part of the 2008 sub-study, a sub group of participants reported whether they had ever experienced verbal or physical sexual harassment at work and whether they had experienced unwanted sexual contact.
They also reported exposure to other traumas, such as an accident or the unexpected death of a loved one.
After excluding participants who already had a diagnosis for high blood pressure and other factors, the researchers had a sample of 33,127 women who were ages 43 to 64 in 2008.
The researchers found that 23 per cent of respondents had experienced sexual assault at some point in their lifetimes, 12 per cent had experienced workplace sexual harassment and 6 per cent had experienced both.
Around 21 per cent of women reported developing high blood pressure over the seven-year follow up period.
Compared to women who had experienced no type of trauma, women who had experienced sexual assault or workplace sexual harassment were more likely to develop hypertension.
Meanwhile, women who had experienced both had the greatest risk of developing high blood pressure.
The researchers noted that the risk for high blood pressure associated with lifetime sexual violence is similar to associations with exposure to childhood sexual abuse, sleep duration and exposure to environmental pollutants.
Laura Rowland, Ph.D., a program chief in the Division of Translational Research at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), said:
“This study highlights why it’s important for health research to examine women’s experiences of sexual assault and workplace sexual harassment.
“Future research can build on these findings to determine whether sexual violence and high blood pressure are causally linked and identify possible underlying mechanisms.”
High blood pressure contributes to around half of all strokes, according to the Stroke Association.
