| Gender differences have been found in various health outcomes: morbidity, mortality, health care utilization, and health behaviors. Although women have greater remaining life expectancy at all ages than do men, they may self-report poorer health than men on measures of health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Women are also socioeconomically disadvantaged as compared to men.;This project focused on a systematic examination of gender differences in self-reported HRQoL across several US nationally representative surveys as measured by commonly used HRQoL indexes, and whether differences are explained by sociodemographic and socioeconomic (SES) differentials between men and women. The second aim of the project was to examine whether gender differences stem from underlying latent dimensions of the HRQoL domains and if so, whether these differences may be explained by sociodemographic and SES differences between men and women.;Data were from four US nationally representative surveys: Joint Canada/United States Survey of Health (JCUSH), Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), National Health Measurement Study (NHMS), and US Valuation of the EuroQol EQ-5D Health States Survey (USVEQ). Gender differences were modeled using weighted least squares regression within and across datasets with SF-6D, EQ-5D, HUI2, HUI3 and QWB-SA scores as outcomes. Gender differences in the underlying dimensions were modeled using structural equation in the NHMS. All gender differences were estimated with and without adjustment for sociodemographic and SES indicators.;Women have lower HRQoL scores than men on all measures of HRQoL prior to adjustment for sociodemographic and SES characteristics. Differences were also found on all three underlying dimensions of HRQoL domains: physical, pain and psychosocial. Gender differences were larger on physical and pain than on psychosocial dimension. Adjusting for age, race, marital status, education and income differential reduced but did not remove the differences except for HUI3 (NHMS, JCUSH) and the psychosocial dimension. Marital status and income had similar and the largest impact on estimated gender differences.;There are apparent gender differences in HRQoL in the US, both in the indexes and their underlying dimensions. These differences are at least partly explained by sociodemographic and SES differentials between men and women. |
