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Gender and Health Inequity - Coggle Diagram
Gender and Health Inequity
Reading Information
Author's Purpose: To answer the question "What is the quantity and quality of attention that gender has received in the sociological literature on health disparities?"
How Author's will answer: 1) Examine changes in research activities and funding to determine the degree of support for research on gender and health. 2) Look at coverage in four major sociology journals
Why? To map where research has been and find new directions to go
Focus areas: mortality (death) and morbidity (illness) differences in physical health profiles of men and women (U.S.)
Differences
Women live longer but suffer more illness
U.S. life expectancy: Women = 80.4 years, Men = 75.2 years (gap is shrinking)
Young men engage in more health damaging behavior than young women (ex. heavy drinking, drugs, etc.) which decreased their well-being and increases their risk of death
Women have more non-fatal, chronic conditions (ex. arthritis) because of disadvantaged SES and increased exposure to social stressors
Why is there a difference in mortality and morbidity? Combination of biological (ex. women have higher estrogen which helps with heart health), social-structure (women tend to have more social support networks), psychosocial, and behavioral characteristics
Men have slightly higher exercise rates than women, but less healthy diets than women
Men tend to have higher rates of being overweight, but women tend to have higher rates of being obese
Violence: Women face more sexual and intimate partner violence
Men face more suicide and homicide
Research
Historically, women have been excluded from medical/scientific research
Surge in researching women in 1970's with feminist movements
Early Finding: Differences in gender and health have been costing women a lot of money due to longer life expectancy but more illness (and more time with illness)
Despite recent gains in research, progress is still slow and there is a need for future research
Future directions: Multilevel and mixed methods to be more comprehensive, intersectional lens
My thoughts: there is a need for deeper research into intersectional factors within gender (sexuality, identities, etc) in both physical and mental health to see where areas are connecting and diverging.