Abstract

Men are more likely than women to die due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). An open question is whether these sex differences reflect men's generally poorer health and lower life expectancy compared to women of similar ages or if men face a unique COVID-19 disadvantage. Using age-specific data on COVID-19 mortalityas well as cause-specific and all-cause mortality for 63 countries, we compared the sex difference in COVID-19 mortality to sexdifferences in all-causemortality and mortality fromother common causes of death to determine the magnitude of theexcess male mortalitydisadvantage for COVID-19. We found that sex differences in the age-standardized COVID-19 mortality rate were substantially larger than for the age-standardized all-cause mortality rate and mortality rate formost other common causes of death. Theexcess male mortality disadvantage for COVID-19 was especially large in the oldest age groups. Our findings suggest that the causal pathways that link male sex to a higher mortality from a SARS-CoV-2 infection may be specific to SARS-CoV-2, rather than shared with the pathways responsible for the shorter life expectancy among men or sex differences for other common causes of death. Understanding these causal chains could assist in the development of therapeutics and preventive measures for COVID-19 and, possibly, other coronavirus diseases.

View details for DOI 10.1007/s10654-022-00866-5

View details for PubMedID 35737205