Gender disparities in injury mortality: Incompatible with social justice frameworks?

Background. Men are more likely than women to die of almost every disease and illness and to do so earlier. Injury is no exception. Given the well-documented decrease in injury mortality in the past several decades, it is important to revisit the most recent reviews of gender disparities in injury, which are based on data from nearly 20 years ago. Method. Data were drawn from the Web-based Injury Query System, which contains injury mortality data from 1981 through 2007. Male-to-female relative risk (gender RR) in injury mortality was calculated for key variables (e.g., time). Results. Boys and men are more likely than girls and women to die of injury. In 2007, the RR was 2.15 for unintentional injury and 3.91 for violence-related injury, a decrease of 20% and an increase of 11%, respectively, since 1981. The pattern of excess of male mortality can be observed in manner of death, cause of death, and within ethnic and age groups. With the exception of the very old, the gender disparity in unintentional and violence-related injury mortality is greater than the ethnicity and age disparities in these manners of death. Conclusions. Social justice analyses of mortality patterns tend to focus on social, structural considerations. Population groups are posited as being at higher or lower risk because of their position in society. Gender patterns in injury mortality do not follow these principles in that the structurally advantaged group, men, is at greater risk.