Gender differences in health and mortality

Large proportion of rural people in developing countries still uses solid biomass for cooking. Literatures reports health effects of indoor air pollution. But the estimates do not count the endogeneity bias arising from the effects of health conditions on fuel choice. This study estimates the effects of indoor air pollution on respiratory health for male, female and children after adjusting for endogenous health behaviors. The study is based on a survey of 600 rural households from Syangja and Chitwan districts of Nepal. We employ instrumental variable probit regressions to find the effects of interventions on chronic bronchitis, asthma and acute respiratory infections. The results show that in addition to age and gender, the use of improved stove and biogas significantly reduces respiratory health problems. In addition to these interventions, the problem of respiratory health is more severe among those of older age cohorts, particularly among those who are female. Hence, they require special attention from health workers and development partners who are interested in reducing the health effects of indoor air pollution. In addition, ICS and biogas have the added benefits of energy efficiency to the households and environmental benefits to the society.

Asthma from the past two decades has been a major public health challenge. A number of studies have suggested that increasing air pollution can accelerate asthma attacks. The objective of the study is to examine the effect of smoking on the risk of developing asthma in male and female. National Family Health Survey round third (NFHS-3) with a sample size of 109041 household has been used for the study. Logistic regression analysis is used to estimate the effects of tobacco smoke & cooking smoke on asthma prevalence with different demographic and socio-economic variables. Due to the large sex differentials in the exposure to cooking smoke and tobacco smoke, a separate analysis is carried out for male and female. Results show that the prevalence of asthma is higher in females than males. The logistic regression show that the females are at a higher risk of asthma than male if exposed to smoking or smoking fuels. The adjusted effect of exposure to smoking on the prevalence of asthma is large and statistically significant for women. It can be concluded that effect of smoking are higher for females than for males.

The main objective of this paper is to understand the gender disparity among PLWHA. The specific objectives selected for this study are,
1) To study the living condition of selected PLWHA in India.
2) To explore the gender dynamics on PLWHA in India.
3) To analyse the awareness and attitude of the head of the households where these PLWHA are living, so as to identify challenges these PLWHA had to face as men and women.

National Family Health Survey NFHS-3 (DHS-India) which was conducted in 2005-06 is selected for this study. NFHS-3 is the first national survey in India which included HIV testing. HIV/AIDS testing was conducted for 53,332 women and 46,506 men. HIV/AIDS tests were conducted in almost all the states of India, except one state where the local opposition prevented it .

This paper uses the men and women NFHS-3. First, the persons tested positive for HIV were identified and these PLWHA are analysed according to the objectives of the paper using both the male and female NFHS-3 datasets separately. Secondly, the head of the households where these PLWHA were living are selected separately and their awareness and attitude towards HIV/AIDS are analysed so as to explore the situation these PLWHA are living in. The findings of this paper are based on men and women in the age group 15-49.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on health inequalities among adult population in Thai Nguyen - a northern mountainous province of Vietnam. Using data from a population-based health survey in the province, the paper explores differences in self-reported health by ethnicity, gender, and household income. Multinomial logistic regressions are used to learn about relations between social determinants of health and self-reported health. The study provides clear evidence of the similarity in adult health status between ethnic minority and the Kinh or the ethnic majority. This finding suggests that policies targeting health improvement for ethnic minority should prioritize children rather than adult population. It consistently found that adult females have worse reported health than adult males. This study provide clear evidence of the social gradient in health: people in the lower income quintiles have worse health than those in the higher quintiles. The study revealed that the pro-poor program known as P135 has created positive effects on population health and such efforts should be continued. The near-poor was found as the most vulnerable population. While the line between poor and near-poor is fragile, this finding raises great concerns to the current pro-poor policies and motivation for the poor to move up the ladder.

This study investigates the age at onset and competing risk of major chronic diseases in India. Diseases considered are CVD, asthma, disorder of joints and bones, mental illness, diabetes and cancer. 60th round of NSSO data is used which is a multi-stage cluster sample survey covering 73868 nationally representative households. Marginal risk is estimated in terms of cumulative incidence function for a disease assuming rest five diseases as competing risk. A popular model for the cumulative incidence given by Fine & Gray is used which is the proportional hazards model for the subdistribution of a competing risk. This study reveals that the prevalence of CVD is highest among rest chronic diseases. The risk of major chronic diseases starts in the age around 40’s. For CVD and disorder of joints and bones females are more vulnerable. CVD and diabetes onset is earlier in richer and highly educated people in India.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the changes of perceived health expectancies of Chinese elderly from 1987 to 2010, and explore the gender differences in the change of health status. Based on nationally representative data, we calculated the perceived health expectancies of the Chinese elderly for both males and females, and made a comparison with the results of the perceived health expectancies of the elderly among 1987, 1992, 2000 and 2010. We found that the morbidity of the elderly was expanded from 1992 to 2000 and compressed from 1987 to 1992 and from 2000 to 2010, and found that the expansion in morbidity for females was more serious than that for males, even though the increase of life expectancy for females was much quicker than that of males. The changes of health status of the elderly, especially for females, were abnormal from 1992 to 2000. The change in social institutions should take some responsibility for the worsening of health for the elderly at that time.

Despite profound distributional concerns, studies on undernutrition in India (or elsewhere) have exclusively focused on inter-personal inequalities whereas estimates regarding the magnitude of intersecting inequalities are unavailable. As such, an explicit concern for horizontal intersecting inequalities not only substantiates the intrinsic concern for equity but also offers vital policy insights that are evidently lost while engaging with a thoroughgoing individualistic approach. With this motivation, we apply the group analogues of Atkinson’s index and Gini coefficient to unravel the disproportionate burden of undernourishment borne by rural and historically vulnerable caste groups. Furthermore, the prominent determinants of inter-group disparities are identified through Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition analysis. In concluding, the paper calls for explicit targeting of backward castes across the country and improved inter-sectoral collaboration to ensure equitable access to education, healthcare, water and sanitation, particularly across underdeveloped regions.

This study attempts to answer several questions: has self-rated health (SRH) improved in Bangladesh; are life expectancy (LE) and healthy life expectancy (HLE) increasing in the same direction, and how much are the relative increases; and how can HLE be improved? We used data from the World Values Survey (WVS). The results show that perceived health improved between 1996 and 2002. For males, statistically significant increases in the expected number of years lived in good SRH were found, though life expectancy showed a decrease of about 3 to 6 months. Comparatively, males expected fewer life years spent in good health but a much larger proportion of expected life in good health than females. This was true only in 2002, however. Different states of health were also found to be associated with socio-demographic differences. Finally and most strikingly, in multivariate analyses, life satisfaction was the only factor found to have a significant positive and growing impact on SRH for males and females in both years, although in both years the impact was much more pronounced for females than for males. This demonstrates that individuals with life satisfaction are more likely to have good SRH. Therefore, greater emphasis should be placed on life satisfaction when efforts are made to improve SRH and HLE in Bangladesh.

Global advances in medicine and health practices, along with epidemiological changes, have improved health across the world. However, these changes appear to be mediated by environmental, cultural factors and behavioral gaps remain across countries. Given these factors, it is reasonable to assume that the United States and South Korea likely have differential underlying biological statuses; however, little research has investigated possible cross-national differences. Drawing from nationally representative cross-sectional panel data (2007-2010 of NHANES and Korean NHANES), we compared two countries who aged 50+ along 8 indicators of biological risk: Systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), total, HDL, LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, Body Mass Index (BMI), and glycated hemoglobin(N=5,761 for US; N=11,315 for South Korea). Findings indicate that while Americans were more likely to be obese, Koreans were more likely to have higher DBP and glycosylated hemoglobin levels. Americans, rates of obesity increased through age 70; however, among Koreans, no obesity differences were found across age-groups. DBP was higher among younger Koreans, particularly among men. Significant gender differences across all biomarkers were found among Koreans while no differences in fasting triglycerides were found among Americans.

Women in most societies and economies are at a higher risk of suffering from chronic illness and besides the types of health problems encountered by them also differ substantially from men particularly at old age. Nationally representative unit level data on morbidity and healthcare for the periods from NSS 60th (2004-05) and NSS 52nd (1995-96) are being used to examine the gender differences in health status among elderly persons in India. By decomposition of gender gap in prevalence of chronic diseases in the two surveys into place of residence, monthly per capita expenditure tertiles (MPCE) and education attainment, it is found that not only the prevalence of chronic diseases among elderly has increased almost three times, but also the gender gap has widened regardless of place of residence. Though the pace at which prevalence of chronic diseases has increased over time are same in both sectors, the level remains high throughout the time in urban than in rural. Of the total increase in gender gap in prevalence of chronic diseases contribution of rural areas is 65 percent and the rest 35 percent by urban area. The main contribution in the increase in gender gap in both the areas is from of literates and rich MPCE Tertile