May 4, 2025, 9:26 am | Read time: 4 minutes
In many countries, men are more affected by three common diseases than women. They also die from these diseases more frequently, according to a recent analysis.
How one’s health stands is closely tied to gender. This is the finding of a new study from the University of Southern Denmark.1 According to the study, men are disproportionately affected by three widespread diseases: high blood pressure, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS.
Overview
Men Live Less Healthily and Are Vulnerable to Certain Diseases
Smoking, unbalanced diet, excessive alcohol — in almost all the countries studied, men tend to lead a less healthy lifestyle. This factor has been confirmed by many previous studies.2 Additionally, they visit doctors or preventive check-ups less frequently. Biological, but especially social and structural factors significantly contribute to the comparatively poorer health of men worldwide. Yet, many global health data are not broken down by gender or inadequately capture the differences. The study authors urgently wanted to change this situation.
Study Methods
For their study, the research team analyzed global data sources on the mentioned diseases. They evaluated worldwide publications and data on the following eight diseases:
- Hypertension
- Diabetes
- Dementia
- Tuberculosis
- Depression
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
- Lung cancer
- HIV and AIDS
The data cover a total of 204 countries, with availability varying for individual disease areas (e.g., hypertension: 200 countries; diabetes: 39; HIV and AIDS: 76). To avoid statistical distortions due to the pandemic, only data from 2019, published in 2021, were considered. In their analysis, the researchers specifically looked for gender-specific differences in diagnosis, access to medical care, treatment success, control, and mortality.
Key Findings Reveal Men More Likely to Die from These Diseases:
- In many countries, men are more likely to fall ill and die from the effects of hypertension, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS. HIV was more common in 56 percent of countries among men, diabetes in 30 percent, and hypertension in four percent. Regarding mortality, men had higher death rates in more than half of the countries — for HIV (64 percent of countries), hypertension (53 percent), and diabetes (49 percent). Particularly striking is the extremely high mortality due to hypertension among men (53 percent) — alarming given that this disease actually occurs equally in men and women. Only in four percent of countries did men fall ill more frequently.
- They generally seek medical help less frequently and less consistently.
- Men also adhered less often to treatments and the associated instructions.
- Men are thus doubly disadvantaged: They are more often affected by diseases and simultaneously have poorer access to diagnosis and treatment.
- Interesting: While men lead in many risk factors, obesity is more commonly a problem among women worldwide.
Men Are More Frequently Diagnosed with and Die from These Three Diseases Than Women
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What the Study Authors Demand
What is the reason for the observed gender differences? “Most cannot be explained solely by gender (biology), but by socially constructed gender,” according to a press release.3 Lead author Angela Chang adds: “The evidence is clear: Gender-specific differences exist at almost every stage of health development — from higher smoking rates among men to higher obesity prevalence among women. However, interventions rarely reflect this.” She, therefore, calls for new strategies that promote greater male participation in prevention and health services. Medical professionals should also monitor gender differences more closely to enable equitable health policy. “Without gender-disaggregated cascade data, we operate blindly and cannot identify who falls through the cracks in prevention, diagnosis, and care.”
However, the limitations of the data analysis should not be overlooked. As mentioned, there was a varying amount of data on the different diseases. There were also significant differences in how the data were collected. Depending on the country and region, information is recorded differently, measurement methods vary, and some data did not come from measurements but from patient self-reports. All this made a clean analysis difficult and limited the study’s significance. Nonetheless, it is undeniable that within its scope, it has provided interesting insights into different patterns of illness and mortality among men and women in connection with certain diseases, as well as approaches for health systems.