Domestic violence is a common tragedy that too many women face. From the emotional to the physical, abuse of any kind can have a longstanding impact on the victim. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) estimates that 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year.

A recent study conducted by the Verizon Foundation and More magazine found that 44 percent of women who were survivors of domestic abuse were 20 percent more likely to have health problems than women who said that they had never been abused.

The survey also asked questions about chronic health problems, including lower back pain, chronic headaches, and difficulty sleeping. Eighty-one percent of women who experienced domestic abuse had continuing health issues, whereas 62 percent of women who had not experienced abuse did not have these issues.

"We simply as a society had to take up domestic violence as a public health problem," Dr. Gail Wyatt, a psychiatry professor and director of the sexual health program at UCLA, told CBSNews.com. "People were not addressing the issues, and there was no help for people if they had these problems."

“Long-term health consequences of domestic violence couldn't be properly addressed until an association between the two was acknowledged,” Rose Stuckey Kirk, Verizon vice president of global corporate social responsibility, told Yahoo! News.

Domestic abuse comes with not only emotional damage, but also financial damage. “The costs of intimate partner violence exceed $5.8 billion each year, $4.1 billion of which is for direct medical and mental health care services,” reports the Family Violence Prevention Fund.

If you or someone you know is facing any type of abuse, please consult one of the websites below for more information:

The National Domestic Violence Hotline

National Network to End Domestic Violence

Safe Horizon

Feminist Majority Foundation