Half of the women in Bages and Moianès suffer from some chronic disease, according to a study by ICS Catalunya Central and IDIAPJGol.
Georgina Pujolar has led the research work with a gender perspective within the framework of the PECT BAGESS project. According to data registered by the ICS between 2018 and 2021, almost 76,000 inhabitants of Bages and Moianès (46.6%) had a chronic pathology.
Home visiting a patient / ICS CATALUNYA CENTRAL
Half of the women in Bages and Moianès suffer from some chronic disease, according to a study by the Research Unit of the Catalan Health Institute (ICS) Central Catalonia and the Jordi Gol Primary Care Research Institute (IDIAPJGol). The work has been led by the researcher Georgina Pujolar from IDIAPJGol within the framework of the Project for Specialization and Territorial Competitiveness: Big Data, Analytics, Management, and Strategy in Health and Social (PECT BAGESS), driven by various entities operating in the region in the health and social sector with the aim of improving the quality of life and promoting social inclusion of people with dependencies and chronic diseases.
The research was conducted with a gender perspective and using ICS data from the population assigned to primary care teams in the two regions, about 160,000 people (85% of the total population of the area), between 2018 and 2021. Among the results, it is highlighted that almost 76,000 inhabitants of Bages and Moianès (46.6%) had at least one chronic disease during this period. Regarding the total population studied, 50% of women had at least one chronic pathology, while the figure for men was around 43%.
The research coordinated by Pujolar also revealed that the percentage of chronicity was higher in women of all ages, except for those under 15, and that 22.6% of the studied population had multimorbidity - understood as two or more chronic conditions, which was also higher among women (25.8%) compared to men (19.4%) and more frequent in the age group over 75 years (73.8%).
The most frequent chronic conditions detected were mental disorders (anxiety and depression) and cardiovascular diseases. Specifically, the most common diseases among the studied population were anxiety (19.1%), hypertension (18.03%), lung diseases (9.6%), osteoarthritis (8.5%), depression (8.2%), and type 2 diabetes mellitus (7.2%).
Looking at the data by gender, it is observed that women suffer more from anxiety, depression, osteoarthritis, and fibromyalgia, with values that double those of men. Overall, diseases related to chronic pain, neurodegenerative diseases (such as Alzheimer's disease and dementia), and mental disorders present higher values among women, while in men, neurodevelopmental disorders (such as autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD) and metabolic diseases (such as diabetes) prevail. Respiratory and cardiovascular pathologies were registered similarly in both sexes.
More chronic diseases
Pujolar's study also shows that the prevalence of all diseases has increased between 2018 and 2021, both in women and men. The age group most affected by chronic diseases is people over 75 years old (93.1%), followed by the range between 45 and 74 years (60%), except in the case of mental disorders, which are more frequent in the 15-45 year group, both in women (25.5%) and men (15.7%).
The data collected from primary care centers in Bages and Moianès between 2018 and 2021 show, according to Pujolar, that "concern for the mental health of the population, especially young people, is increasing" in the context following the COVID-19 pandemic. The results correspond to other studies that also suggest "that the risk of mental disorders, such as anxiety and depression, increases in the face of chronic diseases," says the researcher. For this reason, comprehensive mental health care, "which is not only based on medicalization, is key to avoiding an increase in disease burden and multimorbidity."
This research emphasizes the need to review and adapt approaches to chronic pathologies with a gender perspective and considering all stages of life. The results point to a greater chronicity in women in "pathologies that involve less lethality, but that affect the quality of life of the people who suffer from them to the same or greater extent."
The article "Chronicity in Central Catalonia with a gender perspective: a retrospective cross-sectional study," published in the scientific journal International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, was carried out in a context of a global increase in the impact of chronic diseases, explains the researcher, in a region, that of Bages-Moianès, "which is an aged and highly complex territory, where there is a differential impact and a biased approach to chronicity according to gender." "Future analyzes with a gender perspective are needed to take into account the social determinants of health to determine how axes of inequality affect chronicity processes and the care they require," she adds.
The research was also participated by research technicians Queralt Miró (statistics), Aïna Fuster (pharmacist), and Laia Sola (statistics), as well as the head of the Research Unit of the ICS Catalunya Central-IDIAPJGol, Josep Vidal (family doctor).
