Women are likely to have more poor sexual health than men, study claims

Just like hair care and skin care, it is important to look after your sexual health too. This goes for all the ladies in the house, especially.

According to a study, published in the journal BMC Public Health, poor sexual health is more common in women and affects them in more diverse ways than men.

The study participants included 12,132 people, both men and women. The researchers found out that 47.5% of women and 17% of men in the UK reported poor sexual health.

“Sexual health is an umbrella term that covers several different health risks, such as sexually transmitted infections (STIs), unplanned pregnancy, sexual function problems and sexual coercion,” said study lead author Alison Parkes from the University of Glasgow in the UK.

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“A greater understanding of how these risks are patterned across the population is needed to improve the targeting and delivery of sexual health programmes,” Parkes added.

To better understand the situation, the researchers investigated patterns of sexual health markers, such as sexually transmitted infections (STIs) or sexual function problems, in 12,132 sexually active men and women, aged 16-74 from England, Scotland and Wales, who were interviewed between 2010 and 2012.

Other than this, the associations of sexual health with socio-demographic, health and lifestyle characteristics, as well as with satisfaction or distress with a person’s sex life were also examined.

As part of the findings of the study, the researchers identified sexual health classes, four of which were common to both men and women.

• Good Sexual Health (83% of men, 52% of women)
• Wary Risk-takers (4% of men, 2% of women)
• Unwary Risk-takers (4% of men, 7% of women)
• Sexual Function Problems (9% of men, 7% of women)

Two additional sexual health classes were identified in women only; a low sexual interest class, which included 29% of women and a highly vulnerable class, reporting a range of adverse experiences across all markers of sexual health, which included 2% of women.

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“We identified several groups who are not well served by current sexual health intervention efforts: men and women disregarding STI risks, women with a low interest in sex feeling distressed or dissatisfied with their sex lives, and women with multiple sexual health problems,” she said.