Sexual Harassment can Affect Health for Decades

Source: Picpedia

Illnesses can include high blood pressure, poor quality sleep, anxiety, even depression

Many say that time heals all wounds. But that’s not true. The impact of workplace sexual harassment or sexual assault can result in lingering health problems years after the experience, a new study published in the JAMA Internal Medicine journal says.

The study, “Association of Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault With Midlife Women’s Mental and Physical Health”, set out to answer the following question: Do women with a history of sexual harassment or sexual assault have higher blood pressure, greater depression and anxiety, and poorer sleep than women without this history.

It found that women with a history of workplace sexual harassment had “significantly higher odds of hypertension and clinically poor sleep than women without this history, after adjusting for covariates”. Women with a history of sexual assault had significantly higher odds of clinically significant depressive symptoms, anxiety, and poor sleep than women without this history, after adjusting for covariates, it says.

Read the Entire Article at Entrepreneur.com