A new study shows that men are terrible at giving medical advice online
iStock; Rebecca Zisser/BI
It's a familiar experience: You wake up feeling a little off with a slight headache and some sniffles. Or maybe you started on a new medicine, and you've noticed a small rash developing. Looking for some quick answers, you fire up your browser and waltz over to WebMD. This isn't always an advisable move, of course — you're better off consulting your doctor about health questions than you are a website and randos on the internet — but listen, sometimes you just need a quick reassurance that you're not falling apart. Regardless of what brought you there, if you do land in the comments section looking for some minor medical advice, here's one weird trick for getting decent insights: Look at what women are saying, and ignore the men. Seriously.
A recent study on gender and drug recalls found that WebMD reviews from women were an early predictor of quality issues with drugs that later led to a product recall. When women have negative things to say about medications, that can wind up being a sign that something is amiss enough to eventually cause a drugmaker to act. What men say, on the other hand, isn't at all telling.
"We find that the more negative the drug review sentiment, the greater the hazard of a serious recall on that drug," the researchers wrote. "This relationship is completely explained by drug reviews written by females; reviews written by males have no explanatory power."
George Ball, an associate professor of operations and decision technologies at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business who was one of the researchers behind the paper, put it more succinctly: "The male comments are completely meaningless."
The researchers posit that the gender divide in online health advice is because women are generally more in tune with their bodies and how a drug might affect them. They're more mindful of their health and have greater care for other people's health, too. They're more expressive in their communications, and they're more comfortable sharing their experiences, particularly on social media and elsewhere online. In their analysis, women tended to be more articulate and detailed in their drug reviews and experience, while men were vaguer. Guys would say something like, "Drug works good so far, I'll keep everyone updated." Sure, that may very well be their experience, but it doesn't really do much in terms of communicating the actual effects. Women, on the other hand, were more detailed, like in this example from the research: "My lymph nodes swelled in my armpits and under my ear on the left side. Headache for 4 days then went to urgent care and told to quit taking the med. I was shaky, extremely tired, and very emotional. So glad that is over. Unlikely I will try this one again. Was on it for 4 days." The review has it all: specific ailments, duration of the issues, and even an emotional bent.
"If you think about it, women tend to be a little bit more health-conscious and a little bit more aware of their experiences on how things affect them physically," said Kaitlin Wowak, an associate professor of business analytics at Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business and one of the other researchers behind the project. "Men might just not write comments, or they might not be as explanatory about exactly how this affected me. Whereas women might say, it affected me as X, Y, and Z much more precisely in their comments. And men might just be saying things such as it didn't make me feel good, or I felt lethargic, or I felt bad after taking the drugs."
This wasn't because men and women were having different experiences with the drugs. Doctors reported adverse events, such as hospitalization, disability, unexpected side effects, or death, to the Food and Drug Administration at similar rates for men and women. (Though women self-reported adverse events more than men.) That's important to note because drug development is often more focused on men, and women tend to be underrepresented in clinical trials. It could have been the case that women were just having a worse experience because the drugs hadn't been tested on them to the same extent as men. Given this reality, the researchers had to make sure they weren't just picking up that the drugs didn't work well on women. But that's not what was going on. It was really that women were just … better and clearer at communicating the problem with a drug.
"What female consumers are able to do is they're able to kind of sniff out, sometimes literally, something's not right here with this product," Ball said. Separate research he's done found having women on boards of directors resulted in swifter action on recalls, too.
If the anonymous lady on the internet says a product is making her sick, it's something to pay attention to.
This isn't to say that all online reviews written by men are useless, but the way different genders communicate their experiences — and the trust others put in them — is different. One 2023 study looking at Yelp reviews found that the persuasiveness of reviews by gender depended on product category. People saw reviews from women in areas such as arts and entertainment, nightlife, and home and garden as more pertinent, while they believed men more in areas like car-repair services.
"Women are more authentic. They write more-authentic reviews and more-emotional reviews," said Prashanth Ravula, an assistant professor of business administration at Morgan State University and one of the paper's authors. "When it comes to men, they write more analytical reviews compared to women."
The irony is that many people who read online reviews may still be less likely to listen to the ones posted by women. Some research has found it depends on what's being evaluated — reviews from women are perceived as less helpful on electronics and computers but more helpful in areas like clothing. Other research, however, suggests that even for areas stereotypically seen as being in women's realm, women's reviews aren't perceived as more valuable than men's.
Even when maybe people should, you know, believe women, they don't. It's not the end of the world when they're looking at a review for a new TV or a local restaurant, but for something that could affect their health, who the commentary is coming from might be extra valuable to keep in mind. If the anonymous lady on the internet says a product is making her sick, it's something to pay attention to. The anonymous guy, not so much.
Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.