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The effect of domestic violence on cardiovascular risk

Review of Economics of the Household (2022)Cite this article

Abstract

The prevalence of metabolic risk factors that contribute to cardiovascular diseases (CVD), such as hypertension and high plasma glucose levels has seen a substantial increase globally. Violence elevates stress and increases CVD risk and yet, there is sparse evidence on the relationship between domestic violence and CVD risk factors. This study presents new empirical evidence by leveraging biomarker data from a large nationally representative survey. I find (i) a consistent positive effect of physical violence on prevalence of hypertension amongst women, (ii) a positive effect of emotional and sexual violence on prevalence of hypertension amongst women, (iii) No discernible effects of perpetrating domestic violence on CVD risk, for the men in these relationships.

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Notes

  1. Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are a group of disorders of the heart and blood vessels and they include: coronary heart disease—disease of the blood vessels supplying the heart muscle; cerebrovascular disease—disease of the blood vessels supplying the brain; peripheral arterial disease—disease of blood vessels supplying the arms and legs; rheumatic heart disease—damage to the heart muscle and heart valves from rheumatic fever, caused by streptococcal bacteria; congenital heart disease—malformations of heart structure existing at birth; deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism—blood clots in the leg veins, which can dislodge and move to the heart and lungs.

  2. Due to the contextual background (Section 2 provides an overview) and data limitations, in this paper, domestic violence is defined as physical violence by the man towards a woman in a cohabiting relationship.

  3. Menon (2020) shows that the price of gold at the time of marriage has an effect on domestic violence through initial marital endowments. Section 4 discusses the appropriateness and validity of this instrument in detail.

  4. Cortisol is a stress hormone that helps fuel your body,s ‘fight-or-flight’ instinct in a crisis. Is also keeps inflamation down, regulates blood pressure, and blood sugar.

  5. Bhalotra, Chakravarty and Gulesci (2020) has also found that motivated by dowry costs, monthly changes in gold prices lead to an increase in girl relative to boy neonatal mortality.

  6. There might be a concern that the price of gold at the time of marriage might in some way affect the wealth of the household. Menon (2020) show that conditional on price of gold at the time of survey, the effect of price of gold at the time of marriage on domestic violence persists. Furthermore, anthropological evidence.

  7. For instance, gold is seen as a sign of prosperity and traditionally considered an asset to be passed on as inheritance.

  8. Using the 2015–2016 Indian DHS data, Weitzman and Goosby (2021) also do not find a significant association between domestic violence perpetration and blood glucose levels in men.

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  1. Department of Economics, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, Odense M, 5230, Denmark

    Seetha Menon

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Menon, S. The effect of domestic violence on cardiovascular risk. Rev Econ Household (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-022-09634-6

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Keywords

  • Cardiovascular risk
  • Domestic violence
  • Hypertension
  • Diabetes

JEL classification

  • I12
  • I14
  • J12
  • J16