Introduction
There is a rising concern on the topic of health inequalities, which refers to the differences in health status or in the distribution of health determinants between different population groups (World Health Organization, n.d.). Differences in mobility and mortality can be caused by different determines such as gender role, social classes, age, etc. This article will focus on how gender roles and social classes affect one’s health and how they contribute to health inequality as well as reasons for healthcare professionals to be sensitive on this topic.
Analysis
First and foremost, there factors affect health which is the state of complete physical, social and mental well-being instead of just the absence of disease (World Health Organization, n.d.). The following paragraphs would examine how general roles and social classes affect one’s health and cause health disparity.
According to World Health Organization (n.d.), gender roles are the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women,
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Take drinking and smoking as the examples. According to the Centre for Health Protection (2014), there are 5.7% male interviewees consume a drink containing alcohol daily, while there are only 1.2% female interviewees drink every day. Besides, 21.8% male drink at least once a week, while only 6.5% female do that (Centre for Health Protection, 2014). Apart from consuming alcohol, smoking also brings negative impacts to health. The survey conducted by the Centre for Health Protection (2014) pointed out that there are 17.5% of male daily smokers while there are 3.2% of female daily smokers. As risk-taking health behaviors are linked with masculinity, male tend to perform those activities in order to show their masculinity. As a result, this contributes to the health disparity between men and