WHO Study on Domestic Violence Published
Monday, July 19, 2004
The World Health Organization published a study, the Economic Dimensions of Interpersonal Violence, which found that some countries spend more than four percent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on injuries related to violence. Low-income countries, such as Columbia and El Salvador that spend 4.3 percent of their GDP on such injuries, are among those countries most affected by the economic costs of violence. Three percent of the GDP of the U.S. is spent on violence-related injuries.
The study reports that 1.6 million people die from violence each year and that almost half of women victims are killed by male partners. In some countries, the study finds, up to seventy percent of women victims are killed by male partners. Moreover, the study reports that roughly twenty percent of girls suffer sexual abuse compared with five to ten percent of men.
The study concludes that domestic violence prevention is a cost-effective approach to curtailing the economic costs of this violence, yet more research is needed into the costs of interpersonal violence in order to allow for international comparisons.
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