BCIFV home > Media Releases > February 13, 2001

For Immediate Release
February 13, 2001
Contact: Penny Bain, 669-7055 or 1-877-755-7055
pbain@bcifv.org or www.bcifv.org

Media Release:

Love, High Blood Pressure and Family Violence

Results of a recent study funded by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario provide yet another sound reason to take aim against spousal violence.

The study, released in time for Heart Month in February, "shows that people in unhappy relationships who have mild high blood pressure experience a sustained increase in blood pressure when they are with their partners," according to a press release. "But people who are in loving, supportive relationships experience a decrease in blood pressure when they are with their partners."

"It doesn't take a heart surgeon to guess that relationships marked by spousal violence are generally 'unhappy', and to extrapolate that there are more health-care costs associated with family violence than we've previously considered," says Penny Bain, Executive Director of the BC Institute Against Family Violence.

"We know that spousal assault contributes to health-care costs in terms of emergency room visits and hospital stays," she says. "We know that the counselling to help victims leave violent relationships, or to teach battering partners anger management skills, is intense, prolonged, expensive - and not always successful. We also know that the emotional damage to children who witness violence can have costly long-term consequences to their health.

"Now we can add to this list of health-care consequences that victims in violent relationships who already have high blood pressure are at increased risk because of the violence, and that increased risk brings with it an additional high price tag."

According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, high blood pressure is one of the leading contributors to heart disease and stroke in Canada. Heart disease, including stroke, kills more Canadians annually than any other disease. In 1994, the last year for which statistics are available, treatment of heart disease cost Canadians $18 billion.

"As if all the pre-existing reasons for working to eliminate family violence were not enough, we now have one more very real reason to devote every available resource to this goal, knowing that what we save in the long term will more than pay for the short-term investment," says Bain.

For more information on family violence, contact Penny Bain, Executive Director of the BC Institute Against Family Violence at 669-7055 or 1-877-755-7055, or online at pbain@bcifv.org or www.bcifv.org. For more information on heart disease, or to read the text of the press release summarizing the study on unhappy relationships and heart disease, visit the website of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada at www.heartandstroke.ca.