A massive new study has confirmed what a third of American women likely could have guessed: experiencing stalking is bad for your health. Specifically, women who have been stalked appear to be at a higher risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) compared to those who haven’t experienced that particular branch of psychological violence.
For the study, published in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation, researchers analyzed data from the Nurses’ Health Study II—one of the largest long-term investigations into what influences women’s chronic disease risk. They examined health records from more than 66,000 women over a 20-year period beginning in 2001. At the start, participants reported whether they had ever been stalked and whether they had obtained a restraining order against their stalker.
After analyzing the data, researchers found that the women who had experienced stalking were around 41 percent more likely to have suffered from CVD compared to women who hadn’t. And for women with a restraining order, that number increased to 70 percent. (The researchers also accounted for sociodemographic and family factors when calculating these numbers and came up with statistically similar results.)
This info is validating, particularly on the grander health scheme of things, but sadly unsurprising. While stalking is often treated as harmless or even romantic in pop culture depictions (think: Edward watching Bella through her window in Twilight, or Mark’s obsessive filming of Juliet at her wedding in Love Actually), it is a dangerous form of abuse that can cause severe psychological distress (and even post-traumatic stress syndrome), which in and of itself is a risk factor for heart disease. And CVD is already the leading cause of death in women worldwide (yes, we’re more likely to die after a heart attack than men).
But let’s crunch some numbers anyway. There are roughly 168 million women in the U.S. right now. Considering that an estimated one in three women experience stalking (noting that it’s most often perpetrated by someone they know, like an ex-boyfriend or acquaintance), that nets out to roughly 56 million Americans having an even higher risk for CVD. That’s unacceptable.
We need doctors and public health officials to take this seriously. While some previous research has established violence as a risk factor for CVD, most studies have focused on physical, not psychological, violence. “Our findings indicate that, to better mitigate women’s risk of CVD, more attention needs to be paid to their experiences of violence,” Karestan Koenen, PhD, one of the study’s authors and professor of psychiatric epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, shared in a press release.“We need to improve screening for stalking and other forms of violence, and provide resources for women to protect themselves. And zooming out further, on a broad public health level, we need to do better in addressing and preventing the root causes of violence against women.” Amen.
Note: If you or a loved one are suffering from abuse, contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline by calling 1-800-7233 or visiting www.thehotline.org.
Sofia Lodato (she/her) is the editorial assistant at Oprah Daily. Aside from reading, writing, and wellness, she is a lover of all things media-related, and can usually be found overanalyzing her latest favorite show, album, or video game.