Understanding Gender as a Fundamental Cause of Health: Simultaneous Linear Relationships between Gender, Mental Health, and Physical Health Over Time

Abstract

Responding to calls to move beyond mental or physical health examinations of gender and health, and to systemically understand the relationships between mental health, physical health, and social identity locations, we explored the extent to which gender is a fundamental cause of health by estimating the relationships between gender, mental health, and physical health simultaneously. We analyzed nationally representative longitudinal data from Waves I and III of the American Changing Lives Survey, and estimated general and gender-specific structural equation models to better understand direct and indirect effects of the structural relationships between gender, mental health, and physical health over time. Our findings suggest mental health outcomes drive the likelihood of physical health outcomes in the case of women only, whereas for men, there is no direct nor significant relationship. However, we find persistent effects of anxiety on limited daily activities for men, but not for women. In conclusion, we discuss potential lessons learned from using such analytic methods and the implications of our findings as they relate to gender and health.

Notes

1 Social conditions such as contextual and systemic factors, along with both physical geographical locations and social locations, matter here. By social locations we mean that where one’s intersecting identities of gender, race, class, and so on, symbolically place people in the overall structure of a society and thus resulting in differing experiences, rights and legal protections, day-to-day treatment from others, access to health-promoting resources, and life chance opportunities.

2 Critical total sample size varies by each model with the data and measures used; for our models the sample size was around 500, suggested for each measure included in the models estimated here.

3 See Johnson and Wolinsky (1993), who demonstrate a particular ordering of these that we, too, find important as elaborated in the Discussion section of this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Brittany M. Harder

Brittany M. Harder, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Tampa. Her research focuses on the intersections of health, race, class, and gender as these intersectional positions come to matter for life-chance opportunities and treatment. Her work employs both quantitative and qualitative methodologies and examines minority health and the overall well-being of minorities, systemic discrimination, and lived experiences of marginalization. Her community participation and activist efforts aim to raise awareness of people, processes, and barriers that foster inequality.

J. E. Sumerau

J. E. Sumerau, PhD, is the Director of Applied Sociology and Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Tampa. Her research focuses on intersections of sexualities, gender, health, and religion using mixed-methodological frameworks and has been published in numerous academic journal articles. She is the author of six books, and the co-creator of the academic blog Write Where It Hurts. For more information, visit www.jsumerau.com.