Abstract

CASTANEDA ABASCAL, Ileana Elena; CORRAL MARTIN, Ariadna  and  BARZAGA TORRES, Manuel. Gender and health profiles in Cuba. Rev Cubana Salud Pública [online]. 2010, vol.36, n.2, pp.132-141. ISSN 0864-3466.

Introduction Public health requires gender approach to identify the differences between women and men, and the factors leading to their emergence, all of which facilitates the implementation of specific actions to reduce the sex gap. Objectives To identify those aspects of life that heavily influence the differences between men and women in the lifecycle phases. Methods Qualitative and quantitative methods were used. The former helped to identify the broad profile of those aspects of life that bring about gender differences, among them, groups of debate with teenagers and nominal groups for exploration in individuals at reproductive age, middle adulthood and older adulthood. Later, the discriminating analysis used as quantitative tool allowed determining the specific profiles. Results Within the specific profile, daily life- and health-associated aspects were the most referred. House chores, health problems and toxic habits were considered as strong markers of differences between the sexes in all the studied stages. Likewise, there was identification of other elements that manifest themselves differently in men and women and that respond to the characteristics of each moment of life such as paid work at reproductive phase and attitude towards retirement at older age. Conclusions The pattern of gender differences in the Cuban social setting is characterized by a wide range of life aspects, and those that constitute the specific profiles for each lifecycle phase are the ones that mainly bring about the gender differences between men and women.

Keywords : Gender; broad gender profile; specific gender profile; health.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )