New research on the health impacts of violence

New research from the University of Auckland finds strong links between serious health conditions and experiences of violence.

Two articles published in the Scandinavian Journal of Public Health examine women’s and men’s exposure to interpersonal violence and abuse and rates of hospitalisation.

• Women’s lifetime interpersonal violence exposure and associations with hospitalization at the national level: results from a New Zealand population-based study
• Men’s lifetime interpersonal violence exposure and associations with hospitalization at the national level: results from a New Zealand population-based study

The researchers took data on New Zealand women’s exposure to violence and, with their permission, matched that group of women to their hospital records over 31 years from 1988 to 2019, then aggregated the figures.

The research found that women who have experienced interpersonal violence and abuse are 1.6 times more likely to be hospitalised for cancer and almost three times as likely to be hospitalised for respiratory diseases.

About two-thirds of New Zealand women have experienced violence or abuse over the course of their lives.

These women were also:

• twice as likely to be hospitalised for pregnancy complications
• 1.6 more likely to be hospitalised for digestive disorders, and
• 1.5 times more likely to be hospitalised for injuries (not necessarily resulting directly from the violence).

Experiences of childhood sexual abuse and multiple types of intimate partner violence were strongly associated with hospitalisation for these diseases.

Men were also surveyed, with about two-thirds of ever-partnered men experiencing some form of interpersonal violence. The majority of experiences (43 percent) came from non-partner physical violence, mainly perpetrated by other men. Men who experienced interpersonal violence were twice as likely as other men to be hospitalised for injuries or non-disease specific symptoms.

In a University of Auckland press release, lead author Professor Janet Fanslow said:

“All interpersonal violence can have health consequences. However, the fact that experience of any interpersonal violence is associated with hospitalisation for a greater range of conditions among women than men is likely because the violence perpetrated against them is more frequent and/or more severe.”

“Results also signal that we need to get serious about violence prevention, because the experience of violence is a cost to our health system. We know the country is struggling to pay for health services. So, supporting people to have healthy relationships and doing effective violence prevention up front, is going to keep people safer, help them be healthier, and save us money.”

‍

Related research

This research is part of the He Koiora Matapopore | 2019 NZ Family Violence Study which surveyed 2887 people (1423 men and 1464 women) who completed interviews between March 2017 and March 2019. It provides a new population baseline on the prevalence of violence exposure in Aotearoa. See a summary of the study and related published articles here.

See Volume 53, Issue 6 of the Scandinavian Journal of Public Health for both new articles and more on violence as a public health issue.

For Professor Fanslow’s guest editorial, see here.

For a related article by Fanslow et. al. (2025), see Help-Seeking by Women and Men After Experiencing Any IPV, Including Physical, Sexual, and Psychological IPV, Controlling Behaviors, or Economic Abuse: A Population-Based Study From New Zealand.

For more resources on the health impacts of violence, see the Quick Topic Search on Vine’s website.

For a short video series on violence as a critical health issue featuring Aotearoa health leaders, see this YouTube playlist.