Are we promoting boys and girls equally? An analysis of boys’ and girls’ participation in community prevention

Abstract

Abstract Aim Despite consensus that prevention and health promotion need to address gender aspects and differences, not much is known about how boys and girls in infancy (or their parents) make use of existing non-medical community programmes. The aim of the study was therefore to analyse the extent to which boys and girls or their parents in distinct social circumstances participate in respective programmes. Subject and methods We conducted secondary analyses for two study samples: The COLIPRE Study includes (n = 6.480) pre-schoolers from Duesseldorf; the SKILLS Study includes (n = 637) pre-schoolers and school children from Cologne. Social circumstances included parental education, employment status, family status, migration background, mother language and neighbourhood deprivation. Prevention participation included programmes for a healthy diet, physical activity, child education and language development. We used Poisson regressions to calculate prevalence ratios (PR) with 95% confidence interval (CI), adjusted for age, siblings and BMI, stratified for boys and girls. Results In both studies, we observed no gender differences in general participation. Taking a range of social circumstances into account, we found that boys and girls with specific disadvantages were underrepresented in programmes to promote a healthy diet, physical activity and child education. By contrast, boys and girls with a migration background participate in language promotion programmes more often than their German-native peers. Conclusion More effort should be put into developing programmes for boys and girls and their parents in difficult social circumstances.