The investigation revealed that men are more likely to be involved in car crashes, while women tend to suffer more from anxiety and depression.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), males live up to 69 years of age on average, whereas females generally reach 74 years. A new study has highlighted how sex and gender influence our health and longevity.
Being male or female interacts with other factors such as race, socioeconomic status, age, and sexual orientation, affecting the risk of different diseases and varying life expectancy.
Published in The Lancet, the study concluded that men experience a greater degree of health loss and bear a higher burden of diseases leading to premature death. In contrast, women suffer from more conditions that impair their quality of life in later years.
Women have higher rates of lower back pain, headaches, and depressive disorders, which affect their daily routines. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to have heart problems or be involved in car accidents.
Both biological sex—determined by sex chromosomes and reproductive anatomy—and gender—a social construct related to socially ascribed roles and behaviors of men, women, and gender-diverse people—shape health outcomes.
The study authors noted that gender differences in health begin to manifest during adolescence. “Most illnesses that disproportionately affect females or males, such as depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, and road injuries, begin to differentiate in adolescence,” they explained, noting that this period coincides with the intensification of gender norms and attitudes and the changes brought by puberty.
The researchers used data from the 2021 Global Burden of Disease Study (GBD), focusing on around 20 pathologies in over 200 countries that contribute the most to health loss in individuals over 10 years of age. They measured health loss using Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), which combine the years of life lost due to premature mortality and the years lived with disability.
Rates of healthy life years lost to disease were higher in men for 13 of the 20 conditions analyzed, including COVID-19 and ischemic heart disease. The seven conditions with higher DALY rates in women than in men were lower back pain, depression, headaches, anxiety, musculoskeletal disorders, dementia, and HIV.
