by Men are more likely to have health conditions that lead to premature death, while women may live longer and face higher levels of illness and disability throughout their lives, according to new research.
The global study shows that there are big differences between men and women when it comes to health.
The results also indicate that little progress has been made in the last 30 years to close the gap.
Non-fatal conditions that lead to ill health through illness and disability, including conditions affecting bones and muscles, mental health conditions, and headache disorders, are particularly common in women.
The study suggests that men are disproportionately affected by conditions that lead to premature death, such as Covid-19, road injuries, heart disease, and respiratory and liver diseases.
According to the results, these differences continue to grow with age.
Senior author Dr Luisa Sorio Flor, at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), University of Washington, USA, said: “This report clearly shows that global progress in health has been uneven over the last 30 years .
“Women live longer lives but live more years in poor health, with limited progress made to reduce the burden of conditions leading to illness and disability, highlighting the urgent need for greater attention to the consequences of non -killers that limit the physical and mental function of women, in particular. at older ages.
“Similarly, men have a much higher and increasing burden of disease with fatal consequences.”
The study is also a call to action for countries to increase their reporting of sex and gender data, researchers say.
Dr Sorio Flor said: “The time is right for this study and for the profession to act – not just because of where the evidence is now, but because Covid-19 has reminded us that gender differences can have a big impact play on health outcomes.
“One key point the study highlights is the difference between females and males in many biological and social factors that change and, sometimes, accumulate over time, causing health and disease to arise differently at each stage of life world and across regions of the world.
“The challenge now is to design, implement and evaluate sex- and gender-specific approaches to preventing and treating the leading causes of morbidity and premature mortality from an early age and across diverse populations.”
The study looked at the differences in the 20 leading causes of illness and death between men and women, across ages and regions, and has been published in The Lancet Public Health journal.
The modeling research used data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021, and did not include sex-specific health conditions, such as gynecological conditions or prostate cancers.
The analysis estimates that the rate was higher among men in 2021 than among women in 2021 for 13 of the 20 leading causes of illness and death, including Covid-19, road injuries, and a range of heart, respiratory and liver diseases.
Co-author Dr Vedavati Patwardhan, from the University of California, USA, said: “Our findings highlight the significant and unique health challenges that men face.
“Among these challenges are conditions that lead to premature deaths, particularly in the form of road injuries, cancer and heart disease.
“We need national health plans and strategies to address men’s health needs throughout their lives, including interventions that target behavioral risks such as alcohol use and smoking that typically start at a young age.”
Among the conditions evaluated, the study indicates that the biggest contributors worldwide to disadvantaged women are low back pain, depressive disorders, headache disorders, anxiety disorders, bone and muscle disorders others, Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, and HIV/AIDS.
These conditions contribute to lifelong illness and disability rather than premature death, the study found.
Co-author Gabriela Gil, from the IHME, said: “It is clear that women’s health care needs to extend well beyond the areas that health systems and research funding have so far prioritized, such as sexual and reproductive concerns.”
She said: “Conditions that disproportionately affect women in all regions of the world, such as depressive disorders, are significantly underfunded compared to the huge burden they face, with only a small proportion of government health spending globally reserved for mental health conditions.
“Future health system planning must include the full spectrum of issues that affect women throughout their lives, particularly given the higher level of disability they experience and the increasing female-to-male ratio in populations that getting old.”
The analysis was limited to data on women and men and could not produce estimates for gender-diverse or sex-diverse groups, indicating the need for more data that included the sex and gender domains.
