Delhi, According to a research, children who are physically and sexually abused are twice as likely to have medical and mental health issues as adults, such as angina, arthritis, asthma, COPD, heart attacks, depression, and disability.

According to a research that was published in the journal Child Maltreatment, children who had been sexually abused had a 55–90% higher chance of experiencing severe health consequences than their counterparts who had not.

Additionally, the likelihood of these health effects were considerably increased from 20% to 50% for those who just experienced physical abuse.

According to researchers from the University of Toronto in Canada, having a protective adult in the family was linked to improved outcomes after physical and sexual abuse, offering encouraging information for intervention efforts.

According to Shannon Halls, a Research Coordinator at the university’s Institute for Life Course and Aging, “people don’t typically think about the impact early adversities can have on health outcomes later in life.”

“Our findings highlight the detrimental links between early adversities, including physical and/or sexual abuse, and a variety of health problems in later life,” Halls said.

Notably, children without a protective adult in their home were twice as likely to have depression as adults and were 20–40% more likely to have poor physical health outcomes, regardless of whether they had experienced abuse as children.

Data from more than 80,000 adult US respondents between 2021 and 2022 was analyzed for the research.

Halls urged politicians to develop successful programs to help children, saying the results demonstrate “the importance of positive relationships between children and the adults in their lives.”