Women in NSW 2012 - The Workplace Gender Equality Agency

Health andwellbeingWomen and men have manyhealth issues in common, but alsoexperience different physical andmental health conditions throughtheir lifetime. Most obviously,women have distinct healthprevention, treatment and recoveryneeds relating to reproductivehealth – contraception, pregnancy,childbirth, menopause, as wellas cancers and other conditionsinvolving reproductive organs.Women and men also experiencedistinct social circumstances. Socialcustoms and expectations shapethe roles and attitudes of each sex,and this is reflected in the burden ofdisease each experiences, as wellas the health-related behavioursthey engage in. Women andmen’s pattern of time use, theiremployment and working patterns,education and leisure activities, eventheir eating patterns, are different.The indicators included in thischapter relate to aspects of healthand wellbeing where there arecontrasting experiences for menand women. Some of the indicatorsfocus on the injury and diseaseprofile each sex experiences,while others reflect behaviouraland attitudinal differences. Theyaddress issues which may haveinter-generational effects on childrenand youth, as well as affectingwomen themselves. The chapteralso includes a brief discussionof chlamydia, a disease whichis currently the most commonlynotified communicable disease inNSW and which disproportionatelyaffects young women.KeyfindingsThe data presented in this chapteridentifies a number of healthconditions that affect women morethan men. For example, womenare 1.3 times more likely than mento be hospitalised overnight dueto injuries resulting from a fall;women are more likely than men todie from cerebrovascular diseases(including stroke), dementia andAlzheimer’s disease, and cancers;and women are more likely thanmen to require hospitalisation as aresult of contracting chlamydia.Other data suggest women aremore likely to experience poormental health than men: womenare more likely than men to reporthigh levels of psychological distress(12.4 compared to 9.6 percent), tobe hospitalised for intentional selfharm(twice as likely as men), andto lodge workers’ compensationclaims relating to mental disorder.Interestingly, although fewerwomen than men in NSW rate theirhealth status positively, women ingeneral engage in more healthybehaviour than men. Fewer womenthan men smoke (14 percentcompared to 18 in 2010), aroundhalf as many women as menengage in risky levels of drinking,and fewer women than men areoverweight and obese (46 percentcompared to 60 in 2010). Whenit comes to exercise, however,men tend to be healthier thanwomen, with a higher proportionof men than women undertakingadequate levels of exercise.Women are1.3 times morelikely than men tobe hospitalisedovernight due toinjuries resultingfrom a fall.WOMEN IN NSW 2012 | HEALTH AND WELLBEING13