Men's Health Clearly Lags Women's Health; Let's Continue To Not Give A Good God Damn

www.cdc.gov

Women's health topics:
http://www.cdc.gov/doc.do/id/0900f3ec802271b0

Men's health topics:
http://www.cdc.gov/doc.do/id/0900f3ec80227131

Look at heart disease; point out CDC front page; point out larger number of women's health topics;

So, in my post yesterday I talked about men's health being a second class citizen, based upon the treatment it receives in society. Today I want to show the actual disparity between men's and women's health, in terms of actual health.

So...what are the leading causes of death for men in the US. As reported by the US Dept. of Health and Human Services in Nov. of 2003:

1. Heart disease
2. Cancer
3. Stroke
4. Accidents
5. Chronic lower respiratory diseases
6. Diabetes
7. Influenza and pneumonia
8. Suicide
9. Kidney disease
10. Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis

A pretty typical list...many of these haven't changed in years.

Does men's health lag women's health? If it doesn't, then studies should show that men don't need any more, or less, attention than women.

For reference, here is the CDC page for men's health issues. Here is the page for women's health issues. You'll note some differences, other than gender based health issues...namely, the disparity in sheer number of issues. We've already established the lack of concern for men's health in the last post, so this is no surprise.

On to some specific topics:

Heart Disease:

From the CDC study on Men's mortality rates due to heart disease, Section 4: (I chose sec. 4 because it's a national view of mortality rates)

Overall, men aged 35 years and older in the United States experienced a heart disease death rate of 675 per 100,000 population during 1991–1995. Overall, men aged 35 years and older in the United States experienced a heart disease death rate of 675 per 100,000 population during 1991–1995. However, there was considerable variation in the magnitude of heart disease death rates among the 3,103 counties for which data were available. Rates for counties ranged from 377 to 1,102 deaths per 100,000, and the heart disease death rate at the midpoint of the top quintile (938 per 100,000) was nearly twice as high as the midpoint of the lowest quintile (490 per 100,000).

There's also a nifty chart showing the distribution.

So...depending upon where a man lives, the stats show a low of 377 to a high of 938 per 100,000 aged 35 and over dying of heart disease.

Here's the CDC study for Women's mortality rates due to heart disease, Section 4:

Overall, women aged 35 years and older in the United States experienced a heart disease death rate of 401 per 100,000 population during 1991–1995. However, there was considerable variation in the magnitude of heart disease death rates among the 3,103 counties for which data were available. Rates for counties ranged from 212 to 670 per 100,000, and the heart disease death rate at the midpoint of the top quintile (560 per 100,000) was twice as high as the midpoint of the lowest quintile (275 per 100,000).

So...depending upon where a woman lives, the stats show a low of 212 to a high of 560 per 100,000 aged 35 and over dying of heart disease.

As you can see, the disparity is clear, by almost 2 to 1 on the high end! Yet less attention is given to men's health issues.

Cancer:

I'm having somewhat of a difficult time finding stats for this.

Regarding skin cancer, from the CDC article "Preventing Skin Cancer":

According to the data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) cancer registry of the National Cancer Institute, during 1995--1999, average annual age-adjusted incidence rates for melanoma per 100,000 population were 23.5 for men and 15.7 for women for non-Hispanic whites; 3.8 for men and 3.7 for women for Hispanics; 1.8 for men and 1.3 for women for Asians; 1.5 for men and 0.9 for American Indian/Alaska Natives; and 1.2 for men and 0.9 for women for non-Hispanic blacks (4).

Regarding lung cancer:

From 1999 Incidence and Mortality Data :

Looking at the "By Sex and Site" data:

The crude (as opposed to adusted for a factor such as age) incidence of lung cancer in 2001 among men is 490.7/100K, among women is 482.0/100K. Pretty close. Had I wanted to spin more I would have used the age adjusted stats: 544.8/100K for men, 404.9/100K for women.

The mortality rate (again, crude): 204.9/100K for men, 183.6 for women. Age adjusted: 243.5/100K for men, 164.1/100K for women.

The age adjusted stats certainly are more compelling...I wonder how they're arrived at.

Colorectal cancer:

I couldn't find raw data, but did find this slide. Men clearly have higher rates (incidence and mortality) of this cancer as well. Like other cancers, most cases come from non-genetic related ( sources.

From the National Cancer Institute I found a site that covers a huge 25 year study, covering cancer incidence, prevalence, mortality, by gender, age, etc. etc. Very interesting!

If you take a look at the various stats, you'll find that men have a marked higher chance of getting and dying from cancer than women. There's too much for me to go over here, and such an effort is outside of scope.

I couldn't find specific stats for other diseases...so I'll jump right to suicide. Here is an older study, but based upon stats I've recently seen, male suicide being double that of females is nothing new.

I'm running out of steam here. So, what's the bottom line:

The health of men and women is an important issue. However, men's health is clearly second in line to women's health, and little is being done to change that. Men are not valued in society nearly as much as women are, and IMHO, this is the underlying factor...which will be the topic of at least one upcoming post.