What Are the Health Problems of Women Welfare Recipients Who Have Been Abused?
Over all, research has found that poor women experience more physical and mental health problems of most kinds than women in general (Tolman & Rosen, 2001). Women who have also experienced domestic violence have these difficulties at generally higher rates. A state-wide Massachusetts study (Allard, Albelda, Colten, & Cosenza, 1997), for example, found that 32% of abused women and 21% of non-abused women reported a current “serious physical, mental, or emotional problem.” A Michigan study (Tolman & Rosen 2001) found that 18% of the women who had been abused in the past year reported a “physical limitation” or rated their health as “poor,” compared to 9.5% of those who said they had never been abused. Studies have also found that abused women on welfare have higher rates of depression and “post traumatic stress disorder” (PTSD) than do women who report no abuse, and that those recently abused have higher rates than those whose abuse occurred in the more distant past (e.g. Lloyd, 1997). T
