© 2024 Texas Public Radio
Real. Reliable. Texas Public Radio.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Report Shows Women From San Antonio Face More Deathly Violence Than Those In Other Cities

Picryl Public Domain http://bit.ly/2WdEWbs

The lives of women in San Antonio are more violent than those of women in other Texas cities, and an increasing number of women in the city are dying from that violence.

These were the findings of a report on the status of women in San Antonio in which measures of women's lives were compared against those of women in other major Texas cities.

The report, commissioned by the San Antonio City Council and written by Rogelio Sáenz and Lily Casura at the University of Texas San Antonio, also compared the lives of women in San Antonio to those of men who live in the city. It also measured the differences in the lives of women of different races.

The Chief of Informatics at the Metropolitan Health District, Dr. Golareh Agha, presented the report to the board on Wednesday. She said San Antonio women are victims of rape more often than women in Austin, Dallas, or Houston.

"Another alarming finding is the homicide rate of women in Bexar County doubled between 2012 and 2017 and the number of women murdered by a male intimate partner tripled between 2012 and 2017," Agha said.

The report also tried to measure the differences in health outcomes.

"For health and well-being, the major takeaways are that maternal-infant mortality is higher than in other major counties,” Agha pointed out. “There are also major racial disparities in San Antonio in mortality from heart disease, liver disease, cancer and stroke. And of course the lower the income of women, the lower the life expectancy."

Agha told city council members that women in San Antonio are less likely to complete a bachelor's degree than women in Austin, Dallas or Houston. They earn less than women in the other three cities, and the income gap between women and men is larger in San Antonio than it is in the other three cities.

Read the complete report on the status of women in San Antonio here.

Bonnie Petrie can be reached at Bonnie@TPR.org and on Twitter at @kbonniepetrie