Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman
AP Photo/Keith Srakocic
- A poll from Insider’s partners at YouGov found American men go to the doctor less often than women.
- Just 47% of men have been to a doctor in the past 6 months, compared to 64% for women.
- Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman recently disclosed he hadn’t been in 5 years.
American men go to the doctor less often than their female counterparts, a new YouGov poll found.
While 64% of women said they’ve been to a doctor or primary care provider in the past 6 months, only 47% of men said the same, a 17-percentage-point gap.
After Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. and Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman had a stroke in May, he called attention to what he described as an all-too-common tendency of men not going to the doctor.
“Like so many others, and so many men in particular, I avoided going to the doctor, even though I knew I didn’t feel well,” Fetterman said after his doctor said he hadn’t heard back from him in over 5 years. “As a result, I almost died. I want to encourage others to not make the same mistake.”
Like Fetterman, 9% of male respondents said they hadn’t been to a doctor in at least 5 years. Only 2% of women had the same response.
The YouGov poll also found 21% of men have no primary care provider.
The most common reasons those men cited were 28% who said they “didn’t have a need for one,” 26% who said they “don’t like medical visits”, and 19% who said they “don’t trust medical workers.”
Among women without a primary care provider, the top reason cited by 34% was that they “can’t afford it,” a concern held by just 18% of men without a primary doctor.
In addition to seeking medical care less frequently, studies have found that men receive less attention from doctors on average, and that they’re provided with fewer and briefer explanations.
There was also a racial disparity among those in the YouGov poll saying they had no primary care provider, with 29% of Hispanic and 22% of Black respondents saying they don’t have one compared to 15% for white respondents.
The pollwas conducted among 1,000 Americans from June 7 to June 10 using YouGov’s opt-in internet panel using sample matching. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
