ArticleBMJ open2025
Gender gaps in healthy life expectancy as indicators of inequality for disability and chronic disease: cross-sectional evidence from 24 countries, years 2014-2019.
Article in BMJ open, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Deriving and comparing healthy longevity distributions by gender and health prevalence measures: a statistical moments and maximum entropy approach.Population health metrics · 2026Article
- Gender equality and disease burden in 25 EU member states, 2006-2023: a fixed-effects panel analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveGender gaps in healthy life expectancy are frequently used as indicators of health inequality between women and men. However, total gaps can be misleading-masking critical disparities such as women living longer yet spending more years with disability or illness, or men experiencing premature mortality. We therefore critically evaluate whether these gaps accurately capture gender-based health.
designWe estimate gender gaps in disability- and chronic disease-free life expectancy using the Sullivan method and decompose those gaps via the continuous-change approach to distinguish mortality from morbidity contributions. Data are drawn from the harmonised Gateway to Global Aging Data and the UN life tables from the 2022 Revision of World Population Prospects for all countries, except England, where the life tables are from the UK Office for National Statistics.
settingThe analysis is performed on 24 countries and regions, including the USA, England, South Korea, China, India, Mexico and 19 European Union countries for the years 2014-2015 and 2017-2019 (N=201 723).
main outcome measuresThe main outcomes are gender gaps in disability- and chronic disease-free life expectancy and the contribution of mortality and health in explaining the gender gap.
resultsGender gaps in disability-free life expectancy ranged from -0.37 years (Portugal) to almost 5 years (South Korea), with most European countries showing female advantages of 3.0-3.5 years, while minimal gaps were observed in China, Mexico and India (0.4-0.9 years). Decomposition revealed striking inconsistencies between total gaps and underlying components-South Korea's 4.9-year gap reflected a survival advantage outweighing disability disadvantage by 13-fold, while Portugal's -0.37-year gap masked opposing contributions (mortality: +2.3; disability: -2.7). Chronic disease-free life expectancy showed female disadvantage in most countries, especially Portugal (-2.3), Korea (-1.6) and Mexico (-1.9).
conclusionsUsing gender gaps in healthy life expectancy as a metric for gender inequality in health is misleading. Countries with very different levels of development, healthcare systems and gender roles can have similar gender gaps, but substantial differences in the levels of mortality and health. Because these gaps mask important underlying differences in health and mortality between women and men, caution is warranted when using them.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.