By Erin Digitale, Scope, April 13, 2020
A Stanford-led study has found that experiencing gender discrimination was associated with depressive symptoms in women who had young children.
The research, published recently in EClinicalMedicine, is the first population-based study to look for links between gender discrimination and impaired mental health. It is noteworthy not just for its findings, but also as part of a larger effort to document the health effects of gender inequality on a global scale.
"We need to be investing, as a society, in calling out the impacts of gender discrimination and putting a stop to it," said Stanford global health expert Gary Darmstadt, MD, senior author of the new study and an accompanying commentary. Darmstadt has been leading an effort by scientists across the world to build an evidence base documenting health harms linked to gender inequality. The researchers hypothesize that gender inequality operates like many other kinds of stress, getting "under the skin" and causing damaging biological changes.
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