While violence against women has been recognized by the World Health Organization as a major public health issue, economic abuse has long been an overlooked form of gender-based violence.
And as our daily lives have shifted online, a newer, more complex form is emerging: technology-facilitated economic abuse. Digital tools now allow abusers to monitor, control and sabotage survivors’ financial lives with unprecedented ease.
This issue is not confined to the justice system or financial sectors. Like gender-based violence at large, economic abuse is a public health problem with direct implications for mental health, chronic illness, access to care and long-term economic stability. Yet, it remains largely absent from clinical screening, health policy and health-system planning.
Digital tools have expanded the scope of economic abuse far beyond traditional financial control and now include forms of coerced debt and of agile technological surveillance – that is, surveillance that does not require physical proximity and happens “on the go.” Survivors report:
- unauthorized access to online banking
- monitoring of credit activity and spending
- e-transfer thefts
- fraudulent online loans using stolen identification
- interception of digital paycheques
- lockouts from Canadian Revenue Agency, government benefits or immigration portals
- GPS tracking through phones or vehicles
- remote access to smart home devices
- continuous harassment via messaging platforms.
These behaviours form a pattern of coercive control that restricts autonomy, increases dependence and can create long-term financial instability.
Economic instability is a health issue. It directly affects a person’s ability to afford medication, attend appointments, secure stable housing, and recover from trauma. The consequences are visible even if the underlying cause is not.
Mental health: Survivors experience chronic stress, anxiety, sleep disruption, panic attacks and symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress. Continuous digital surveillance contributes to a state of persistent hypervigilance, straining the nervous system and affecting cognitive functioning. According to a scoping review on the impact of economic abuse on survivors of intimate partner violence, multiple studies have found that there is a positive association between economic abuse and depression, as well as anxiety and PTSD. It has been found to be significantly and negatively associated with self-esteem and psychosocial health and positively associated with symptoms of psychological distress. Fatigue and mental health struggles were found to be more prevalent among pregnant people. The mental health impacts in turn generate costs for survivors who have to seek long-term mental health support services.
Physical health: Sustained economic and psychological stress contribute to hypertension, migraines, cardiovascular strain and other stress-related disorders. For some, the loss of financial control leads to gaps in medication, nutrition and stable housing, all of which worsen chronic disease outcomes. Studies have found an association between economic abuse and pelvic problems as well as difficulties maintaining stable weight in women aged 16 to 49. For women aged 50 to 65, there is greater probability of psychosomatic symptoms, gastrointestinal symptoms, allergies, and difficulty maintaining stable weight. Another study reviewed in the same article established an association with cardiovascular disease; yet another found mortality was higher among older adults.
Access to care: When identification documents, online benefits accounts or financial resources are controlled, survivors often delay or avoid seeking care. Missed appointments, untreated conditions and reliance on emergency services follow. Despite this, technology-facilitated abuse is not routinely screened for in primary care, emergency departments or mental-health settings. Health providers see the symptoms but rarely the cause.
There is no national clinical screening protocol for economic abuse.
Though front-line clinicians are increasingly encountering patients whose health concerns are intertwined with financial sabotage, digital monitoring or loss of economic autonomy, the tools, guidelines and training needed to recognize these patterns are limited.
There is no national clinical screening protocol for economic abuse. Most electronic medical record systems lack prompts or categories to document it. Interdisciplinary pathways between health, financial institutions, settlement services, justice and anti-violence organizations remain fragmented.
To help close the gap, the federal government established the Code of Conduct for the Prevention of Economic Abuse in 2025. While designed for financial institutions, the code has implications far beyond the banking sector. It signals an emerging recognition that economic safety is foundational to personal safety and, by extension, to health.
The code requires banks to:
- identify and respond to coerced debt
- support survivors who have been locked out of accounts
- strengthen protections around online banking access
- implement trauma-informed processes for credit disputes
- collaborate with community organizations
- improve detection of suspicious financial behaviour in abusive contexts.
For survivors affected by technology-facilitated abuse, this represents a meaningful shift. It establishes a structure for intervention in an area in which systems have previously lacked coordination.
But while this is a credible and necessary foundation, it is not complete. For the code to meet its potential, it must be mandatory, properly monitored and integrated into broader health and social-service responses.
In November, the Canadian Centre for Women’s Empowerment launched its HELP US RISE 2025 campaign across more than 100 Canadian cities to raise awareness among survivors and service providers. It includes an economic abuse toolkit for frontline workers; technology safety planning; training for financial institutions and health professionals; and survivor-informed research and policy frameworks.
But demand for support is rising faster than capacity.
Health systems will need integrated policies, training pathways and clinical guidelines as digital banking, Artificial Intelligence-driven identity systems and smart home technologies become more embedded in everyday life.
If health systems do not adapt, the result will be predictable: greater mental-health strain, increased emergency-department use, worsening chronic-disease outcomes and deeper inequities among racialized, newcomer and low-income women who already face structural barriers.
Addressing economic and digital safety is no longer optional for health policy. It is a core component of patient wellbeing. Canada’s new Code of Conduct marks an important step. Now the health sector must match it with its own coordinated, trauma informed response.
