醫學中的社會性別及其測量方式

Measuring Gender in Medicine

在中文語境中提到「性別」時，往往並不區分生理性別（sex）與社會性別（gender），但兩者其實存在重要差異：前者由生物與解剖學的特徵決定，而後者則主要由社會文化與心理認同所構成。諸多證據顯示社會性別在醫學研究中是一個重要的變項，會影響對疼痛的感受、心血管疾病與癌症風險等健康結果；因此，適當將社會性別納入醫學研究既能提升研究品質，亦更合乎研究倫理，惟學界對其測量方式尚缺乏共識。本文簡介醫學研究中社會性別測量之發展，與幾種主要測量方法。選用適當的測量方式，有利於在研究的包容性與實用性間取得平衡。

In Chinese,“gender”and“sex”are often not clearly distinguished, yet the two differ in important ways: the former is determined by biological and anatomical characteristics, whereas the latter is primarily shaped by sociocultural factors and psychological identity. Considerable evidence indicates that gender is an important variable in medical research, influencing health outcomes such as pain perception, cardiovascular disease, and cancer risk. Appropriately incorporating gender into medical research can therefore improve research quality and better accord with research ethics; however, no consensus has yet been reached on how gender should be measured. This article briefly reviews the development of gender measurement in medical research and several major measurement approaches. Selecting an appropriate measurement method helps strike a balance between the inclusiveness and the practicality of research.