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DELHI (Reuters Health) - The risk of asthma is significantly greater in families in which women are subject to domestic violence, according to the results of a study conducted in India and published in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
Asthma is "socially patterned," with a higher prevalence among lower socio-economic groups, probably because of greater exposure to adverse environmental and social circumstances, Dr. S. V. Subramanian, of the Harvard School of Public Health, and colleagues in Boston explain. Domestic violence, a major contributor to stress in the family, has been reported to affect more than one third of Indian women.
To explore the link between domestic violence and asthma prevalence, Subramanian's group analyzed results from the Indian National Family Health Survey conducted between 1998 and 1999, covering more than 90,000 households.
Women subjected to domestic violence in the previous year had 37 percent greater risk of having asthma, the researchers report. Women aged 15 to 44 were the most affected group.
Children living in households in which women were violently abused in the past year were also at higher risk of asthma, the researchers observed. Asthma risk was also higher among the men living in these households, they add.
Domestic violence may contribute to asthma by triggering the nervous system in harmful ways or by contributing to coping behaviors like smoking or staying indoors, the researchers postulate.
"Stress-induced mechanisms, partially captured through violence and psychosocial circumstances," could explain the social patterning of asthma, Subramanian and colleagues conclude.
SOURCE: International Journal of Epidemiology, online February 23, 2007.
