Women over-represented in psychiatric-drug ads, study says

By Shankar Vedantam
The Washington Post

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The depictions of women in the ads contrasted with those of men, who were usually shown in active, professional roles. A comparison of U.S., British and Canadian journals in 1981, 1991 and 2001 found that the proportion of ads featuring women increased in the U.S. and Canadian journals. In 2001, no men were shown in ads for antidepressants in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Overall, 88 percent of the drug ads depicted white people.

Although there were roughly equal numbers of men and women in psychiatric ads in 1981, the number of women had soared to 80 percent in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry and 88 percent in the American Journal of Psychiatry by 2001.

"The effect of these advertisements on physician perception, diagnosis and prescribing is unknown but may be substantial," the researchers wrote. "Future advertisements for psychotropic drugs should seek more balanced representations of gender and race."

The analysis was published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease.

The authors wrote that "despite the great diversification and expansion of women's roles over the last 20 years, there is a consistent tendency in pharmaceutical advertising to represent women submissively or even in a sexualized manner in traditional settings and roles."

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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