Divorce bad for women's health - study
Divorce is bad for women’s health, according to a new US study.
Researchers found that at first marital break-ups only affected mental health, but 10 years later those original problems had caused women’s physical health to deteriorate as well.
Some 416 women in rural Iowa, 102 of them recently divorced, were interviewed three times in the early 1990s and again in 2001 for the study.
From 1991 to 1994, the divorced women reported 7% higher levels of psychological distress than married women.
A decade later, they had 37% more physical illness than their married counterparts.
Fred Lorenz, who co-authored the report at Iowa State University’s Institute for Social and Behavioural Research, said: “What we found was that the act of getting a divorce produced no immediate effects on (physical) health, but it did have effects on mental health.
“Ten years later, those effects on mental health led to effects in physical health.”
