Bias on the part of doctors is bad for women's health, a European conference in Dublin heard yesterday.
While heart disease is increasingly common in women, because they are living longer than men they are not being referred for treatment quickly enough, the conference in Trinity College Dublin was told.
The delay in hospital referral reduces their chance of having life-saving treatments administered, Dr Susanna Sans, director of the monitoring programme on chronic diseases and research at the Institute of Health Studies, Barcelona, said.
She added that evidence from the USA shows that when they are hospitalised for heart disease, women "undergo fewer invasive diagnostic and therapeutic procedures than men". Older people suffer most from heart-related illnesses and the majority of older people are women, she said.
Coronary heart disease is the number one killer for post-menopausal women in Europe, yet it continues to be seen by researchers as a male disease, Ms Peggy Maguire, director of the European Institute of Women's Health, said.
The institute is hosting the conference, "Promoting Gender Equity in Public Health in Europe".
There is considerable evidence of differences in access to healthcare between men and women, she said. "It is acknowledged that women use medical services more than men, rising from 30 per cent under [age] 30 who consult their doctors regularly to over 40 per cent for women over 75.
"Despite this, women still lag behind in diagnostic care towards the prevention of diseases."
As an example, she said, women over 40 are at particular risk of diabetes, "perhaps because of high rates of obesity after menopause.
"Yet statistics show in 1995 that only 21.6 per cent of women were tested for diabetes. Turning to osteoporosis, recognised as a woman's disease, only 17 per cent of women over 50 were tested for the disease."
Men are also affected by health bias when it comes to diseases associated with women, she said.
"While one in three European women will probably have a hip fracture because of osteoporosis, one in nine men will also suffer a hip fracture." Despite this, she said, men have barely been considered in research, information about or treatment of the disease.
And the nature of masculinity may itself be damaging to men, she added. "They do not attend their doctors as regularly as women. Many feel compelled to engage in risky behaviour in order to `prove' their masculinity.
"This means that they are more likely than women to be murdered, to die in a car accident or in dangerous sporting activities. In most societies they are also more likely than women to drink to excess and to smoke, which in turn increases their biological predisposition to early heart disease and other health problems. They are also more likely than women to desire unsafe sex."
The conference continues today.