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RESEARCH PRODUCT

The Role of Age and Gender in Perceived Vulnerability to Infectious Diseases

Amelia DíazJesús ZuecoAngela Beleña

subject

AdultMaleIndependent groupAdolescentanimal diseasesHealth Toxicology and MutagenesisPerceived vulnerabilitylcsh:Medicinechemical and pharmacologic phenomenabehavioral immune system050109 social psychologyDiseaseCommunicable DiseasesVulnerable PopulationsArticleAge and genderYoung Adult03 medical and health sciencesSex FactorsImmune systemSurveys and QuestionnairesgenderHumans0501 psychology and cognitive sciencesBiological immune systemStudents0303 health sciences030306 microbiologylcsh:R05 social sciencesAge FactorsPublic Health Environmental and Occupational Healthintegrated compensatory immune systemMiddle Agedbiochemical phenomena metabolism and nutritiongerm aversionbiological immune systemCross-Sectional StudiesageImmune SystemDesign studyperceived infectabilitybacteriaFemaleAnalysis of variancePsychologyClinical psychology

description

Background: The study of the immune system has been approached using two separate paths, the biological immune system and the behavioral immune system. Recently, Gangestad and Grebe proposed a unique integrated compensatory immune system, where both systems work together and one of them could compensate for the other when necessary. However, few studies have confirmed the existence of this integrated compensatory immune system. Our study represents an attempt to explore the existence of this unique immune system, investigating if the behavioral immune system variables increase when the biological immune system weakens with age. Material and Methods. The cross-sectional design study was made up of a final sample of 1108 participants (45.2% men and 54.2 women) aged 18&ndash

yearjournalcountryeditionlanguage
2020-01-11International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17020485