Zeitschrift für Frauengesundheit
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Abstrakt

Sex and Gender Bio-psychosocial Differences in Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19): Men have more Biological Problems, but Women Suffer more Long Term Serious Psychosocial Consequences and with more Implications for Population

Jose Luis Turabian

The current outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) continues to spread affecting many countries and territories around the world. The COVID pandemic implies that it is the first time that sex and gender differences have become apparent to the world. COVID-19 poses a greater risk to men, by reasons biological and cultural. Men are likely to have more complicated clinical condition and worse in-hospital outcomes and they have more harmful health habits as compared to women. On the other hand, in the COVID-19 pandemic, greater psychosocial effects can be observed in women, in relation to work, family, intra-family transmission and childcare, affectation by quarantine, etc., which is aggravated due to the fact that most health workers are women. The results for women in crisis situations are significantly worse. The differential effects by sex and gender of the COVID-19 outbreak, both direct and indirect, should be considered a priority. Future studies on COVID-19 should incorporate more systematic attention to sex and gender on issues such as ongoing vaccine trials and treatments for coronavirus, research on whether COVID-19 symptoms are the same for men and women, the how we can prevent women from bringing the infection to families, as well as fully incorporate women into the mechanisms of surveillance, detection and prevention of global health security.