Women and men are equally unequal when it comes to the burden of major diseases.

They compared years of healthy life lost due to the 20 leading causes of disease or premature death among women and men over 10 years of age worldwide and in seven world regions between 1990 and 2021. Conditions also taken into account include musculoskeletal disorders, road trauma or even depression, anxiety and Alzheimer’s disease.

Overall, according to the study, in 2021, men suffered more from problems leading to premature death, such as Covid, road traffic accidents, cardiovascular, respiratory or liver diseases, while women suffered more from musculoskeletal, mental or neurodegenerative disorders .

Throughout their lives, women are more likely to suffer from illness and disability than men because they tend to live longer.

Differences in health from adolescence

Over the past 30 years, the gender gap in the impact of these 20 conditions has remained generally stable, but has sometimes widened for diabetes, which affects men even more than before, according to the study.

Over the same period, there has been an overall significant increase in changes caused by depressive disorders, anxiety and some musculoskeletal disorders affecting women.

Another lesson: Health differences between women and men begin during adolescence.

“The challenge now is to develop, implement and evaluate sex- and gender-sensitive interventions for the prevention and treatment of leading causes of morbidity and premature mortality, starting from a very young age and in different populations,” according to lead author Luisa Sorio Flor from the University of Washington, quoted in the press release.

The authors acknowledge that the study has a number of limitations, citing in particular the quantity and quality of certain data or systematic biases in the epidemiological data. Because the goal was to facilitate comparisons, the researchers also excluded pathologies that are common in women and men, such as gynecological diseases and prostate cancer.