If the last 12 months have shown us anything, it’s the fact that workplace sexual harassment can have a shattering effect on women’s emotional and mental wellbeing – not to mention on their professional success.

Of course, many women knew that already. But since the #MeToo movement caught fire this time last year, it’s become impossible for the world at large to ignore the fact that workplace sexual harassment shouldn’t be laughed off as a joke, or dismissed – as Donald Trump Jr once charmingly argued – as part and parcel of being a woman at work. It’s serious, and its consequences can be devastating.

A study published last year indicated there was a link between workplace sexual harassment and depression, and other research has shown that experiencing sexual harassment early in one’s career can precede long-term depressive symptoms. However, according to a major new study, it’s not just women’s mental health that can be affected by being sexually harassed at work.

The new research, published in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Internal Medicine, showed that women who reported experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace had higher blood pressure than women who did not. It was high enough for them to be at risk of stroke, aneurysms, kidney disease, heart attacks and other forms of heart disease.

How workplace sexual harassment is linked to women’s physical health