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Sex Differences in Legal Drug Use
Author(s) -
Verbrugge Lois M.
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.618
H-Index - 122
eISSN - 1540-4560
pISSN - 0022-4537
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1982.tb00118.x
Subject(s) - medical prescription , medicine , feeling , drug , population , prescription drug , gerontology , health care , family medicine , psychiatry , psychology , environmental health , nursing , social psychology , economics , economic growth
Women use more legal drugs of all types (preventive, curative, prescription, nonprescription) than men do. This paper studies personal characteristics that encourage drug use by adults and how those characteristics help explain women's greater use. Data are from a general population survey of white adults in metropolitan Detroit, which has information on drug use from health interviews and also from health diaries kept for six weeks. Results show that morbidity is the strongest predictor of both curative and preventive use for adults. Age ranks second (older people use more drugs), and inability to ignore symptoms ranks third. Disruptive events, feelings of helplessness about life, poor self‐rated health, and recent stress also boost drug use to a smaller extent. Personal characteristics are not only crucial to explaining day‐to‐day drug use by women and men, but also to accounting for sex differences in use. Detroit women's drug use is 50–80% greater than men's. The women also tend to have personal characteristics that boost drug use. When those characteristics are statistically controlled, the sex differences in drug use diminish. This is especially true for curative use, because it is so strongly affected by morbidity and women report much greater morbidity than men do. Structural characteristics (features of health services, medical care practice, health insurance, drug industry) are not measured in the data, but they are probably important too since people's ability to obtain prescriptions and to purchase drugs ultimately affects their daily drug use.