India may experience domestic violence against women due to increase in temperature: Study

New Delhi: As per new study, with rise of average annual temperature of one degree Celsius could lead more than 6.3 percent of physical and sexual domestic violence against women across three south Asian countries, including India.

A study published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, on Wednesday (June 28) found that an increase in temperatures leads to a substantial rise in domestic violence against women.

The researchers tracked 194,871 girls and women aged between 15 and 49 to study the prevalence of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and its types which include physical, sexual, and emotional violence across India, Pakistan and Nepal.

“A significant association was found between high ambient temperature and the prevalence of IPV against women,” said the study, adding that with every one degree Celsius increase in the annual mean temperature, they noted a total of 4.49 per cent IPV prevalence.

The researchers  have predicted a 21 per cent increase in family violence in the region by the end of the 21st century, with India estimated to experience the highest increase of 23.5 per cent among the three countries, the other two being Nepal and Pakistan.

In its projected increase in violence, the study also found that physical (28.3 per cent) and sexual violence (26.1 per cent) were significantly higher than emotional (8.9 per cent).

The study said in the 2090s, India was estimated to experience the highest IPV prevalence increase (23.5%) among the 3 countries, compared with Nepal (14.8%) and Pakistan (5.9%).

This comes as India witnessed several heat-related deaths, earlier this year, with temperatures up to 45 degree Celsius in certain parts of the country.

Speaking about the findings of the research, Michelle Bell, a professor of environmental health at Yale University and a co-author of the study, said there were “many potential pathways, both physiological and sociological, through which higher temperature could affect risk of violence”.

The findings of the study suggest a need for sustainable climate mitigation along with public health programmes to address intimate partner violence in climate-sensitive regions, the researchers said in their paper.