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The
Importance of Interviewers |
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10
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Gender Differences
Categorizing data into subgroups is easy for researchers because of the
"Demographics" section of the BRFSS. In this section you will be asking
questions such as:
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"What
is your age?" |
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"Which one or more of the following would you say is
your race?" |
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"Are you Hispanic or Latino?" |
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"What
is the highest grade or year of school you completed?" |
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"About how
much do you weigh without shoes?" |
Other demographic questions include marital status, number of children
under the age of 18, type of employment, annual income, military status, and
gender.
Gender differences are not always surprising—could you guess more women
than men are trying to lose weight?—but can show trends and highlight areas
for potential public health campaigns. Consider, for example, the
differences between men and women related to alcohol consumption. Here are some of the questions about alcohol
consumption:
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One drink is equivalent to a 12-ounce beer, a 5-ounce
glass of wine, or a drink with one shot of liquor. During the past 30
days, on the days when you drank, about how many drinks did you drink
on the average? |
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Considering all types of alcoholic beverages, how many
times during the past 30 days did you have five or more drinks on an occasion?
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Using these questions researchers can examine the patterns of heavy
drinking and binge drinking among the U.S. adult population. Heavy drinking
is defined as having more than two drinks per day for men and more than one
drink a day for women and binge drinking is defined as having five or more
drinks on any one occasion. In 2004 BRFSS data show that males reported a
higher percentage of heavy drinking compared to females (5.7% vs. 4.1%).
Additionally, males were three times more likely than women to report binge
drinking (23.0% vs. 7.5%).
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The
Importance of Interviewers |
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10
of 19 |
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