geschlechtsstandardisierter

Geschlechtsstandardisierter is an adjective used in statistics, epidemiology, and demography to describe data or estimates that have been adjusted to account for differences in the sex distribution of populations. The aim is to enable valid comparisons across groups or over time when the proportion of males and females differs. The concept is analogous to age-standardization, but uses sex as the standardizing factor.

Two standardization approaches are commonly used: direct and indirect. Direct standardization applies sex-specific rates from the study population to a predefined standard sex distribution, producing a single summary rate that would occur if the study population had the standard sex composition. Indirect standardization uses sex-specific rates from a reference population applied to the study population’s sex structure, yielding expected counts and a standardized mortality or incidence ratio.

Applications include comparing mortality, cancer incidence, or other health outcomes across countries, regions, or time periods; it helps separate true differences in risk from differences in sex composition. Data requirements include reliable sex-disaggregated data and, when appropriate, complementary age standardization.

Limitations include the influence of the chosen standard population on results, and the possibility that standardization masks important sex-specific patterns when no longer visible in the aggregated metric. Standardization is also less informative when sex-specific counts are small, leading to unstable estimates.

See also standardization, direct standardization, indirect standardization, and sex-disaggregated analyses.