Women who reported stalking at higher risk of heart disease and stroke: study

Women who reported being stalked by a former or current partner or by someone else were more likely to develop heart disease and stroke than women who did not experience those events.

A study led by a doctor at the University of British Columbia that included 66,207 women in the U.S. also found that women who obtained a restraining order had a significantly higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease than women who did not obtain one.

Data provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated that about one in three women reported being stalked at some point in their lives.

“Although violence against women is common, and evidence has linked violence with consequences for women’s later heart health, it is still not widely recognized or routinely considered by health care professionals as a potential cardiovascular risk factor among women,” study author Rebecca B. Lawn, Ph.D., a research associate in epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston and the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia said in a statement.

Story continues below advertisement

The new research was published on Monday in the American Heart Association’s journal, Circulation.

“We felt it was essential to look beyond traditional cardiovascular risk factors in women and strengthen our understanding of the relationship between underexplored types of violence and heart health,” Lawn said.

She had previously studied the link between sexual assault and workplace harassment to higher blood pressure in women, but common forms of violence against women, such as stalking, are rarely linked to cardiovascular research.

Get weekly health news

Receive the latest medical news and health information delivered to you every Sunday.

Participants joined the study in 2001, and researchers analyzed stalking, restraining orders and the development of heart disease or stroke among the women during the 20-year study.

These women did not have cardiovascular disease in 2001, when they first shared whether they had experienced stalking or stalking harassment behaviours, such as receiving unsolicited correspondence, that made them fearful.

The study also tracked whether the women had obtained a restraining order at any time.

2:38
‘Someone’s been stalking me for almost 3 years’: Calgary online harassment case thrown out by Crown

Overall, nearly 12 per cent of the women, or close to 8,000, reported they had been stalked, while six per cent of them said they had obtained a restraining order. About three per cent, or close to 2,000 women, reported new-onset heart disease or stroke.

Story continues below advertisement

The participants who reported being stalked were 41 per cent more likely to have cardiovascular disease than those who didn’t report it.

Women who had obtained a restraining order were 70 per cent more likely to report cardiovascular disease than those who didn’t obtain one.

Trending Now

“Stalking is often seen as a form of violence that does not involve physical contact, which may make it seem less serious,” Lawn said. “However, our findings suggest stalking should not be minimized. Stalking can be chronic, and women often report making significant changes in response, such as moving.”

Women whose medical records confirmed heart attacks or strokes were more likely to have reported being stalked or obtaining a restraining order, according to the study.

It also found that despite other cardiovascular risks, such as lifestyle choices, medications or childhood abuse, the increased risks for heart attack and stroke associated with stalking and restraining orders remained.

2:38
Brother of woman shot in Coquitlam says she lived in fear of her estranged husband

“I think the take-home message is that violence against women is common, but is also preventable, and it has huge, or potentially huge health impacts, even, like I said, decades after themselves, and so it’s something that we should be taking a longer and a bigger picture lens on,” Lawn added.

Story continues below advertisement

“We also need to increase awareness about the potential health harms of experiencing violence and provide women with help and resources,” she said.

The study included 66,270 U.S. women ages 36-56 years at enrollment in 2001 in the Nurses’ Health Study II, part of a larger, ongoing survey of U.S. female nurses that began in 1989. Self-reported data on stalking were collected in 2001. Information about heart attacks and strokes was self-reported and verified with medical records.

More on Health
More videos

&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.