TheLoop21.com

By: Crystal P. Smith (Add to your loop)
Wed, 10/28/2009 - 07:12

Domestic violence places a burden on our health care system.

Read more of TheLoop21.com's Red, Black and Green series on domestic violence.

Often, when we as a society discuss domestic violence, we highlight the psychological and physical damage done to the individual, but we ignore the hardcore facts of how abusive behavior affects our economic bottom line.

We know abuse victims suffer from low self-esteem, but we neglect to ponder how much it costs to provide victims with mental health services. We shake our heads at the physical violence and rape they endure but are ignorant of how much multiple hospital and emergency room visits cost. The CDC's data about intimate partner violence, which is from 2003, indicates that of the 5.3 million victimizations that occur among U.S. women ages 18 and older each year, nearly 2 million of them result in injuries and more than 550,000 of them require medical attention.

The costs of intimate partner rape, physical assault, and stalking exceed $5.8 billion each year, nearly $4.1 billion of which is for direct medical and mental health care services. That number in 2003 dollars is more than $8.3 billion — imagine what the cost is in 2009.

Physical assault — broken bones, internal injuries, choking, stabbing — is the most common type of abuse inflicted. The same CDC report shows nearly 4.5 million physical assaults occur each year, more than 1.8 million causing injuries and 519,030 injuries that require medical care.

So, while everyone's excited about health care, we should think about ways to prevent exorbitant costs caused by things like domestic violence. Just as a person's likelihood of getting HIV/AIDS decreases with regular condom use, just like being at a normal healthy weight helps to prevent death from cancer, diabetes and heart attacks, recognizing the difference between healthy relationships and unhealthy ones can keep people out of the hospital.

According to the Huffington Post, not knowing the difference can even affect your ability to get health insurance. Eight states consider or previously considered being battered a pre-existing condition. The thought? If you allowed it to happen before, you will again, thus, you're more expensive to insure.

But abused women do spend more time in the hospital and at the therapist's office. They experience more physical health problems, are more likely to be depressed, slip into drug and alcohol abuse and attempt suicide than women who are not abused. The total number of mental health care visits by female victims each year is estimated at more than 18.5 million.

Because the pattern of domestic violence is often chronic and escalates at a rapid rate, often ending in death, the health care costs can only be controlled by our country's efforts to make it stop. We have to rehabilitate abusers and break the cycle of abuse when they're still young. Abusers stop their partners from working, encourage patterns of abuse in their children, and cost our country a lot of money.

Now, these statistics are for all women in the U.S., but Black women experience intimate partner violence 35 percent more than white women. Domestic violence is the leading cause of death for Black women ages 15- 45. Throw in the fact that we're more likely not to have health care insurance and the situation is devastating.

Maybe the next time you see someone being abused, whether it's in a grocery store or mall, you won't be so quick to look the other way. Our code of silence is killing us — and costing us more than we know.

Photo by Women's Aid Act.

Crystal P. Smith is senior editor and writer at TheLoop21.com, where she focuses on pop culture, gender, social issues and race. She also writes the Inside the Loop blog.

What would you do if you witnessed a domestic violence incident?

Personally intervene

Call the police

Not get involved