Epi in the News

Hi, first time I'm doing this! Kind of fun.

1. In response to this report, can you come up with (at least) one specific hypothesis to investigate? 

• A. Mainstreaming gender equity into the education sector (training teachers, adapting curricula, etc) in the UK will reduce gendered career choices over a long period of time. 
• B. Implementation of a gender-transformative intervention in parents will reduce gendered career choices
• A&B implemented together will synergize and lead to larger decreases in gendered career choices

2. What is the exposure? The outcome? How would you measure these? 

Exposure is gender "stereotypes". There are questionnaires to measure rigid gender roles in participants e.g. Gender Roles Attitudes Scale. 

Outcome may include the following: 

• mental health outcomes: can be measured using questionnaires like the patient health questionnaire (primary data generation) and/or through sex-disaggregated mental health data (secondary data generation)
• for body image and eating disorders,  it's highly likely there are questionnaires as well given they are rather well documented in DSM-V. 

3. What is the theoretical mechanism of action, and how can you test this?

“Harmful” gender stereotyping has helped fuel the UK mental health crisis afflicting the younger generation, an influential report has warned, adding that it is at the root of problems with body image and eating disorders, record male suicide rates as well as violence against women and girls.

Rigid gender roles limit people's inherent capacities, their ability to thrive, and permit and perpetuate harmful behaviors. Quick ideas on the link between gender roles and mental health:

• In many countries, societal norm stipulate that a man's role is to be the breadwinner, and that a woman's role is to take care of the house and rear children. As a result, a young woman may not be able to pursue her passion, continue her education, and may be subject to gender-based violence - all of which will influence her mental health. The norm is preventing her from doing what she wants to do, and this will affect her mental health.
• These gender roles also harm men's mental health, albeit in different ways than in women. In many countries, young men that is not 'cis het' (e.g. men who have sex with men, gay bisexual, etc) may face considerable discrimination and stigma, especially during puberty when sexual activity increases. This will have massive repercussions on mental health.

4. The authors of the report are making a causal argument about gender stereotyping. How do you think they arrived arrived at this conclusion?

The full report from the NGO includes a mini 'literature review' on happiness & mental health, in which it attempts to brig together several lines of evidence on the topic of gender & mental health. This includes evidence that gender roles can affect self-esteem (using a quasi-experimental design in one case), evidence on parents' gendered beliefs predict the beliefs of offspring (using cross-sectional designs & scales), and a conceptual model on the gendered/social nature of suicide, based on available evidence.

Issues with the press release : one example

"The report finds that stereotypes contribute towards the mental health crisis among children and young people, are at the root of girls’ problems with body image and eating disorders, higher male suicide rates and violence against women and girl." 

I totally agree with this statement. However, it could be argued that the report does not provide sufficient evidence that this is the case. 

Issues with Guardian report

Headline: "Gender stereotyping is harming young people's mental health, finds UK report" .

Again, I totally agree that this is the case. However, the report does not really provide this evidence, and the article does not elaborate on this either.

1. In response to this report, can you come up with (at least) one specific hypothesis to investigate?

Are gendered attitudes from childhood caregivers associated with male suicide rates?

2. What is the exposure? The outcome? How would you measure these?

Exposure: gendered attitudes from childhood caregivers, such as dressing boys in the color blue, recommending specific occupation types associated with stereotypically male roles, encouraging or excusing behavior associated with stereotypically male gender roles

Outcome: male suicide (I don't think this needs to be defined further but could have a parameter such as age range, i.e., adult male suicide over age 18)

3. What is the theoretical mechanism of action, and how can you test this?

I think the suggested mechanism is that male stereotyping limits the ability of an individual to explore his full capabilities, experience his full rang of emotions, build social capital that supports his true self, or otherwise limits his experience socially and emotionally.  Or, such an individual may choose to embody a non-traditional role at the risk of losing his social network. Due to such limitations, the psyche suffers and ultimately leads to suicide.  However, maybe I'm making a leap here and perhaps this inference is too heavily reliant on outside information that's not implicit in the article?  Also, am I interpreting "mechanism of action" correctly?

4. The authors of the report are making a causal argument about gender stereotyping. How do you think they arrived arrived at this conclusion?

The article refers to a report that is the "culmination of an 18-month process of research and evidence gathering."  However, it's still unclear to me how causation was determined.  The evidence collected sounds like a cross-sectional study or like a series of surveys, in which case an 18-month time period for data collection is too short for a lifecourse outcome in which the exposure is in childhood.

To confirm association and deduce causation, a large, longitudinal cohort study or a case-control study is needed. 

Welcome Svet!

I find this very interesting, partly because of the subject matter but also because my sister-in-law is chief executive of the Fawcett Society, the organisation behind the report.

1. There are lots of hypotheses in the report that I would like to know more about. There's probably enough for a summer project for all of us! How about:

• Is there an association between holding gender stereotyped views and poorer wellbeing among children in the UK?

2. Exposure: holding gender stereotyped views. There would need to be an overall measure of the extent to which children hold stereotyped views. The report gives a couple of beliefs as examples: that 'being tough' is the most important trait for boys, and that 'having good clothes' is the most important trait for girls.  It was good to read about the Gender Roles Attitudes Scale, thanks Svet.

Outcome: wellbeing. There must be a range of wellbeing/mental health measurement tools that are validated for use in children.

3.  I think that holding gender stereotyped views may give children an idea of the kind of person they 'should' be, and if they perceive themselves as failing to live up to this model, or feel drawn in different directions, then this may be a source of emotional distress. There must be a lot of confounding factors though - including other kinds of views that may be difficult to capture in a study. 

4. The authors seem to have weighed up a range of evidence gathered from different sources over an 18-month period. Like Amy and Svet, I don't think there's enough evidence in the report to support such strong causal arguments. My sister-in-law is not a scientist but she is a brilliant campaigner!