According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in every four women in the U.S. is subjected to domestic violence. Stephen Billings, an economics professor at UNC-C and one of the lead researchers on the study, said many of these cases remain underreported .
UNC-C researchers published the report, funded by Wells Fargo, in late October to quantify the financial cost of domestic violence on people’s private lives and in the public sector, Billings said.
“We split the costs into categories. We look at the value for loss of life, the cost to physical and mental health and the cost of the value of work productivity, which is lost because of this violence,” he said.
“Though it can be very hard to put a value on these types of things.”
The researchers went beyond the medical costs, which people often assume to be the primary financial burden associated with domestic violence, Billings said.
The mental health care costs and the cost of loss of life from homicide were the second and third largest annual financial burdens of domestic violence, according to the study — at costs to the state of $57.1 million and $42.8 million, respectively.