Summary: Young women are more likely to take risks such as multitasking or chatting while navigating stairs.
This behavioral pattern could explain why women in their 20s suffer stair-related injuries 80% more often than men. The research, which involved the observation of 2,400 young adults on two staircases over a semester, identified eight risky behaviors.
The findings suggest that the tendency of women to multitask and converse on the stairs might be riskier than men’s habit of skipping steps or not watching the stairs.
Key Facts:
- Young women are more likely to engage in risky behaviors, such as multitasking or conversation, while descending stairs than young men.
- Women in their 20s are injured 80 percent more often than men in stair-related incidents, the highest rate across all age groups and genders.
- The study identified eight risky behaviors: not using the handrail, not watching the stairs while descending, wearing inappropriate footwear, having a conversation, using electronic devices, hands in pockets, holding something, and skipping steps.
Source: PLOS
Young women were more likely to engage in risky behavior like multitasking or conversation while descending stairs versus young men, according to an observational study of college students published July 26, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by HyeYoung Cho and Shirley Rietdyk from Purdue University, USA, and colleagues.
Falling on the stairs is more likely to result in injuries than other types of falls. In the US, three groups are most likely to fall on the stairs: children under three years, young adults in their 20s, and older adults over 85 years.
In the young adult group specifically, women are injured 80 percent more often than men—the highest injury rate across all ages and sexes except for women in their eighties or above.
To identify risks for falling on the stairs and examine why young women sustain so many stair-related injuries compared to young men, the authors videotaped two indoor staircases on a US university campus, one short (two-steps) and one long (17-steps) over the course of a semester.
They analyzed 2,400 young adults recorded on either the short staircase (52 percent of whom were women) or long staircase (29 percent of whom were women), and identified eight risky behaviors: no handrail use; not watching the stairs while descending; wearing sandals, flip-flops, or high heels; having an in-person or smartphone conversation; using an electronic device; hands in pockets; holding something; and skipping steps.
They also identified five participants who lost their balance, all of whom recovered: four were men, on the long staircase, and one was a woman, on the short staircase.
Women were significantly less likely to use the handrail (though no participants were recorded using the handrail of the short staircase), more likely to be holding something in their hands, more likely to be engaged in conversation, more likely to wear sandals and heels, and also demonstrated a higher number of co-occurring risky behaviors.
However, women were less likely to skip steps and more likely to look at the stair tread during transition steps than men.
Previous research has shown that women tend to interact more closely with colleagues, presumably why so many of the people engaging in in-person conversations on the stairs were women.
Overall, the results suggest that women are often multi-tasking and therefore possibly distracted while descending the stairs—and that this might be more dangerous than skipping steps or not looking at the stairs, the behaviors more often seen in young men in this study.
The authors add: “The young women we observed demonstrated more risky behaviors than the young men; future studies should also examine physiological differences that may lead to greater injury risk, such as differences in strength or reaction time.”
About this neuroscience and psychology research news
Author: Hanna Abdallah
Source: PLOS
Contact: Hanna Abdallah – PLOS
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
“Risky behavior during stair descent for young adults: Differences in men versus women” by Shirley Rietdyk et al. PLOS ONE
Abstract
Risky behavior during stair descent for young adults: Differences in men versus women
Injuries commonly occur on stairs, with high injury rates in young adults, especially young women. High injury rates could result from physiological and/or behavioral differences; this study focuses on behaviors.
The purposes of this observational study were (1) to quantify young adult behaviors during stair descent and (2) to identify differences in stair descent behavior for young adult men versus women.
Young adult pedestrians (N = 2,400, 1,470 men and 930 women) were videotaped during descent of two indoor campus staircases, a short staircase (2 steps) and a long staircase (17 steps). Behaviors during stair descent were coded by experimenters. Risky behaviors observed on the short staircase included: No one used the handrail, 16.1% used an electronic device, and 16.4% had in-person conversations.
On the long staircase: 64.8% of pedestrians did not use the handrail, 11.9% used an electronic device, and 14.5% had in-person conversations. Risky behaviors observed more in women included: less likely to use the handrail (long staircase), more likely to carry an item in their hands (both staircases), more likely to engage in conversation (both staircases), and more likely to wear sandals or heels (both staircases) (p≤0.05).
Protective behaviors observed more in women included: less likely to skip steps (both staircases), and more likely to look at treads during transition steps (long staircase) (p≤0.05). The number of co-occurring risky behaviors was higher in women: 1.9 vs 2.3, for men vs women, respectively (p<0.001).
Five pedestrians lost balance but did not fall; four of these pedestrians lost balance on the top step and all five had their gaze diverted from the steps at the time balance was lost.
The observed behaviors may be related to the high injury rate of stair-related falls in young adults, and young women specifically.
