Scientific Study: Women Get Sick More Often, but Men Die Earlier.

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Women live longer than men, but they suffer from health problems for longer periods, according to a global analysis of the health gap between the sexes. Experts say it underscores the urgent need to take action to promote women’s health.

According to a report published by the British newspaper “The Guardian,” experts confirmed that there are significant differences between women and men regarding health, with limited progress in closing health gaps over the past three decades, according to the study that examined the impact of the top twenty leading causes of diseases in the world.

The results were published in “The Lancet” public health journal, where researchers found that non-fatal conditions that cause illness and disability, such as musculoskeletal problems, mental health issues, and headache disorders, particularly affect women.

At the same time, men are disproportionately affected by conditions that cause premature death, such as heart and vascular diseases, respiratory and liver diseases, COVID-19, and road injuries.

Health disparities between women and men continue to increase with age, leaving women suffering from higher levels of illness and disability throughout their lives, as they live longer than men.

Dr. Louisa Sorio Flor, the lead author of the study from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, said, “This report clearly shows that global progress in health over the past thirty years has been uneven.”

She added that females enjoy longer lives but spend longer years in poor health, with limited progress in reducing the burden of cases leading to illness and disability, emphasizing the urgent need for more attention to non-fatal consequences that impair women’s physical and mental function, especially in older ages. Similarly, males suffer a much higher and increasing burden of disease with fatal consequences.

Sorio Flor said the study also represents a call for countries to enhance their reporting on gender-related data and the appropriate timing for this study and the call to action.

She noted that COVID-19 has starkly reminded us that gender differences can deeply impact health outcomes.

Sorio Flor pointed out that one of the main points highlighted by the study is how females and males differ in many biological and social factors that vary and sometimes accumulate over time, leading to different health and disease outcomes at each stage of life and across regions of the world.

The challenge now, according to the lead authors of the study, lies in designing, implementing, and evaluating gender- and socially-sensitive approaches to prevent and treat the leading causes of disease and premature deaths at an early age and across diverse population groups, as the study looked at differences in the top twenty leading causes of disease and death between men and women across ages and regions.

The analysis estimates that for 13 out of 20 causes of disease and death, including COVID-19, road injuries, and a range of heart, respiratory, and liver diseases, the rate was higher among men than women in 2021.

Among the conditions evaluated, the results indicated that the biggest contributors to women’s deprivation were lower back pain, depressive disorders, headache disorders, anxiety disorders, musculoskeletal disorders, Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, HIV/AIDS, and AIDS.

The study found that these conditions contribute to lifelong illness and disability rather than leading to early death.

Gabrielle Gill, the lead author of the study from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, said, “It is clear that women’s health care needs to extend beyond the areas that health systems and research funding have prioritized so far, such as sexual and reproductive concerns.”

She added that conditions that disproportionately affect females worldwide, such as depressive disorders, suffer from significant underfunding compared to the enormous burden they cause, with only a small percentage of global government health spending allocated to mental health conditions.

She called for future health system planning to include a full range of issues that affect females throughout their lives, particularly given the high level of disability they experience and the increasing female-to-male ratio in elderly populations.

Source: Arabi 21