Why Women Report Being in Worse Health Than Men

They aren't whiners. Women have a higher rate of underlying chronic health problems



http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-women-report-being-in&print=true

some extracts:

"There's been a longstanding debate about whether women's self-reported health is a reporting bias or not," said sociologist Ellen Annandale of the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, who was uninvolved in the new work. "Some researchers argue that women might over-report health problems, and men might under-report. This study supports wider research that women's poorer self-reported health reflects underlying chronic health problems."


"What the new study doesn't answer, is why women have a higher rate of chronic health problems. The data did reveal that women's higher rate of chronic problems can be most strongly attributed to five chronic disorders: arthritis, mental disorders, neck pain, headaches and back pain. But further research will be needed to explain why."

 "Women generally live longer than men, but in many countries that gap in life expectancy has been decreasing over time. One of the reasons for that is thought to be that men's health is improving, but women's is not."
 
Pass it on:  The fact that women generally rank their health poorer than men do correlates to a higher rate of chronic health problems, not a higher likelihood to complain about their health or pay attention to symptoms.