ARCHIVED - Research About - Gender and Health

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The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is the Government of Canada's agency for health research. CIHR's mission is to create new scientific knowledge and to catalyze its translation into improved health, more effective health services and products, and a strengthened Canadian health-care system. Composed of 13 Institutes, CIHR provides leadership and support to nearly 12,000 health researchers and trainees across Canada. Through CIHR, the Government of Canada invested approximately $43.2 million in 2007-08 in gender and health-related research across Canada.

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The Facts

• Girls born in 2005 can expect to live almost five years longer than boys, with female life expectancy at 82.7 years and male life expectancy at 78 years. The gender gap is narrowing, however. In 1991, girls were expected to live to 80.9 and boys to 74.6.
• Canadians with a university level diploma/certificate earn, on average, more than twice the income of those who have not completed high school. Although more women are now pursuing a post-secondary education in comparison to men, their average full-time employment wage has not increased proportionately.
• In 2005, the most recent year for which Statistics Canada has figures, Canadian women working full-time earned an average of $39,200, or 70.5% of the $55,700 average earned by men.
• Rates of testicular cancer continue to increase among young Canadian men, growing 1.8% per year between 1995 and 2004. Testicular cancer incidence has been increasing for several decades for reasons which are not well understood.
• Canadian men are likely to die due to accidents (unintentional injuries) at a disproportionately higher rate than women (33.8 per 100,000 men compared to 16.0 per 100,000 women), while their suicide rate is more than triple that of Canadian women (16.6 per 100,000 men, compared to 5.1 per 100,000 women).

(Sources: Statistics Canada, Health Canada, Canadian Cancer Society/National Cancer Institute of Canada and Chief Public Health Officer's Report on the State of Public Health in Canada 2008)

Finding Solutions

Fewer older women admitted to ICU

A review of hospital records for almost a half-million patients showed that among those 50 years or older, women were less likely than men to be admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) and to receive selected life-supporting treatments. They were also more likely than men to die after critical illness. Dr. Robert A. Fowler, an associate scientist at Sunnybrook Research Institute, led a team that looked at the records of 466,792 people – including almost 25,000 critically ill patients – in 13 Ontario hospitals in 2001 and 2002. The study concluded that "differences in presentation of critical illness, decision-making or unmeasured confounding factors" may have contributed to the different treatment the women received.

Age no impediment to exercise interventions

What do older women want? More support to help motivate them to exercise more and eat better, according to a survey of the eating and exercise habits of Canadian women aged 55 to 95. Of the 2,500 women who took part in the CIHR-supported mail survey, almost two- thirds of the respondents were aged 55 to 74. In that age group, 62% reported exercising three times a week for at least 20 minutes. But the study, led by Dr. Cara Tannenbaum of the University of Montreal, also found that 35% of the women in that younger group were not exercising or eating nutritiously. These women identified encouragement from health professionals, family and friends as important factors for them to get more exercise and eat better.

Women cancer survivors less active than men

Women cancer survivors are less likely to be physically active than male survivors, according to a University of Alberta study led by CIHR-funded scientist Dr. Kerry Courneya. Fewer than 22% of cancer survivors are physically active, with the lowest activity rates reported by female colorectal cancer survivors (13.8%) and breast cancer survivors (16.6%). Results of the study were published in the April 2008 issue of the journal Cancer.

The Researchers

Dr. John Oliffe – Man enough to be depressed

What defines being a guy's guy? Being tough, a doer, the kind of man who, when the going gets tough, bears down and just keeps going? What about depression?

Depression might seem to be the antithesis of traditional macho qualities, but it just might be these manly qualities that push men into depression, says CIHR-supported researcher Dr. John Oliffe. His research at the University of British Columbia is leading the development of new ways of understanding, diagnosing and eventually treating men's depression.

Dr. Oliffe says his research is in many ways driven by a seemingly stark contradiction: women are twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with depression, but suicide, which is often linked to depression, is four times as common in men. Indeed, for Canadian men aged 15 to 34, suicide is the second most common cause of death.

"I lost a couple of mates who at about age 40 called it a day. It seemed so amazing to me that they would do that in what I saw as the prime of their lives," says Dr. Oliffe, a 44-years-old originally from Australia.

His recent analysis of studies of depression and masculinity around the world concluded that traditional male behaviours often hide depression in men.

"Culturally we don't expect men to be emotive or to show much emotion" notes Dr. Oliffe.

He is currently researching new ways to diagnose men's depression. Dr. Oliffe says that today's diagnostic tools for depression don't include male-specific symptoms, such as increased levels of anger. Differences between depression in men and women could even extend to treatment.

"Recently there's been a major emphasis on the biology of depression and medication," says Dr. Oliffe. "But with men we also need to look at the social construction of masculinity and how this is fuelling depression."

For more information, go to http://www.impact.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/