Women Not Very Knowledgeable About Health

Seventy-three percent of Canadian women say they are aware of women’s health issues beyond reproduction, but they really don’t, a survey indicates.

Women’s College Hospital X-Effects Health Index found that 48 percent of women believe both men and women are experiencing the same increase in occurrence of type 2 diabetes, even though women between the ages of 20 and 50 are experiencing the biggest rise in this chronic illness.

Thirty-six percent are aware that sudden pain in the chest, arm, neck, jaw or back are not always the most common symptoms for a woman suffering a heart attack. Nearly half say they did not know more women than men suffer from arthritis.

Sixty-one percent of women are unaware that the number of men and women who experience depression in their lifetime is not the same — in fact, research indicates women are twice as likely as men to experience depression.

One-third mistakenly believe that men and women who smoke develop lung cancer at the same rate — in fact, women are 1.5 times more likely than men to develop lung cancer, and women who never smoked are more likely to develop lung cancer than men who have never smoked.

Leger Marketing conducted the national online survey of 800 Canadian adult women between Aug. 21 and Aug. 28. The survey has a margin of error of plus/minus 3.5 percent.