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The gender peak effect: Women are most vulnerable to infections during COVID-19 peaks

In this article, we describe a gender peak effect that women's relative share in COVID-19 infections increases when there is a sharp increase in cases, and it reaches the highest level during peak times in each wave of the COVID-19 outbreak. We demonstrate this gender peak effect by analyzing d...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Wu, Cary, Qian, Yue
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9395988/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36016899
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.937179
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author Wu, Cary
Qian, Yue
author_facet Wu, Cary
Qian, Yue
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description In this article, we describe a gender peak effect that women's relative share in COVID-19 infections increases when there is a sharp increase in cases, and it reaches the highest level during peak times in each wave of the COVID-19 outbreak. We demonstrate this gender peak effect by analyzing detailed, sex-disaggregated Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) data. The data include 1,045,998 men and women who were confirmed cases of COVID-19 from March 2020 to February 2022. We show that women's relative share in COVID-19 infections always increases and reaches the level exceeding men's share when we see a sharp peak in case number. We further show that women's higher share in care work (e.g., captured by occupation and age variables) largely explains their elevated infections during COVID-19 peaks. Effective public health interventions during infectious disease outbreaks must recognize this potential gender peak effect and take appropriate measures to curb women's health vulnerabilities.
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spelling pubmed-93959882022-08-24 The gender peak effect: Women are most vulnerable to infections during COVID-19 peaks Wu, Cary Qian, Yue Front Public Health Public Health In this article, we describe a gender peak effect that women's relative share in COVID-19 infections increases when there is a sharp increase in cases, and it reaches the highest level during peak times in each wave of the COVID-19 outbreak. We demonstrate this gender peak effect by analyzing detailed, sex-disaggregated Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) data. The data include 1,045,998 men and women who were confirmed cases of COVID-19 from March 2020 to February 2022. We show that women's relative share in COVID-19 infections always increases and reaches the level exceeding men's share when we see a sharp peak in case number. We further show that women's higher share in care work (e.g., captured by occupation and age variables) largely explains their elevated infections during COVID-19 peaks. Effective public health interventions during infectious disease outbreaks must recognize this potential gender peak effect and take appropriate measures to curb women's health vulnerabilities. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-08-09 /pmc/articles/PMC9395988/ /pubmed/36016899 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.937179 Text en Copyright © 2022 Wu and Qian. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Wu, Cary
Qian, Yue
The gender peak effect: Women are most vulnerable to infections during COVID-19 peaks
title The gender peak effect: Women are most vulnerable to infections during COVID-19 peaks
title_full The gender peak effect: Women are most vulnerable to infections during COVID-19 peaks
title_fullStr The gender peak effect: Women are most vulnerable to infections during COVID-19 peaks
title_full_unstemmed The gender peak effect: Women are most vulnerable to infections during COVID-19 peaks
title_short The gender peak effect: Women are most vulnerable to infections during COVID-19 peaks
title_sort gender peak effect: women are most vulnerable to infections during covid-19 peaks
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9395988/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36016899
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.937179
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