women who get beaten up at home are more vulnerable to asthma than those not subjected to domestic violence, a
study says. The findings have been corroborated by social scientists working on domestic violence in India.
Domestic violence is a significant trigger for asthma, the researchers reported after a cross-country survey of Indian women exposed to household
abuse. The research team, including scientists from the Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School, analysed data from the Indian
National Family Health Survey of 1998-99 to conclude that the women who had then reported some kind of domestic violence were more susceptible
to being asthmatic than those who had not undergone domestic violence. Their findings were published in the International Journal of
Epidemiology on February 28, 2007.
With help from a national women's rights body, Down To Earth found two women who were suffering from domestic violence-triggered
asthma. On condition of anonymity, the women, one from Rajasthan and the other from Tripura, conceded they became asthmatic after years of
physical abuse at home. The woman from Tripura said she realised the problem only after being subjected to physical abuse for about 10 years.
In homes that experienced any form of domestic violence, the risk of being asthmatic increased by 15 per cent to 19 per cent for all members living
there. It was particularly strong for children under five, an age when asthma typically appears.
Violence can increase smooth muscle tone in the lung, which in turn may mediate emotionally-induced bronchial constriction. Agrees Abraham
Peedicayil, head of the Obsteristics and Gynaecology department of Christian Medical College, Vellore. "I have seen in many patients that
psychological stress including domestic violence can trigger or exacerbate asthma," he says.
The Indian study reinforces the association
between domestic violence and asthma found in studies in the us and Australia, Subramanian says, adding: "Like most
diseases, asthma is also socially patterned, with lower socio-economic groups, on average, being more burdened."
"Using domestic violence as a marker of stressful psychological circumstances for those who directly experience violence and those who witness it,
we investigated the relationship between stress and asthma prevalence," Subramanian says.
Researchers working on domestic violence agree that such ailments are common. These
figures might, however, just be the tip of the iceberg, says Anita Raj, an associate professor at the Boston University School of Public Health.
Moreover, domestic violence goes unnoticed when it has psychological dimensions rather than purely physical manifestations, she says.
The dataset used for the survey found a higher prevalence of asthma among women in the northeastern states in comparison to the rest of India.
"However, the relationship between domestic violence and asthma is pretty much a national phenomenon and has no striking regional variations,"
Subramanian said.
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