Short Report Women’s Midlife Symptom-Reporting in China: Cross-Cultural Analysis JEANNE L. SHEA* Department of Anthropology, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont 05405 ABSTRACT This report draws on data from the author’s China Study of Midlife Women (CSMW) to test the popular notion that East Asian women have a low level of midlife symptom reporting compared with North American women. Symptom-reporting frequencies from a general population sample of 156 Chinese women of age 45–55 in China are compared with rates from pub- lished studies on midlife women in Japan, Canada, and the U.S. While the Japanese women’s rates of reporting 16 core symptoms are uniformly low, the Chinese women’s frequencies range from low to moderate. Except on hot flashes and headaches, the Chinese women’s symptom-report- ing rates tend to be more similar to the North American than to the Japanese sample. This analy- sis demonstrates that women’s midlife symptom reporting in China cannot be equated with find- ings on women in Japan. Sources should be more cautious in making generalizations about East Asian women in this regard. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 18:219–222, 2006. ' 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc. It has become common for secondary sources to cite the comparative findings of Lock, Kau- fert, and McKinlay (Avis, 1993; Lock, 1993; Lock and Kaufert, 2001) on women’s midlife symptoms in Japan, Canada, and the U.S. to suggest the beneficial effects of ‘‘Asian’’ or ‘‘East Asian’’ culture, diet, and hormonal pro- files for women at menopause (e.g., Aso, 1997; Brody, 1997). Extrapolating far beyond the analysis of Lock et al. and sometimes citing some additional studies, such sources have asserted that East/Asian midlife women in gen- eral seem to be relatively free of a wide range of physical and psychological symptoms com- pared with western women. Some have pointed specifically to Chinese women in this regard (e.g., Berger, 1999; Sheehy, 1992). There have been few published studies of Chinese women’s midlife symptoms, however, and, of those few conducted in mainland China, most were not designed to be comparable with the pivotal studies of Lock et al. This report analyzes results from the author’s China Study of Midlife Women (CSMW) (Shea, 1998) to test the generaliza- tion that East Asian women have lower levels of midlife symptom reporting compared with North American women. It compares these results with those of Lock, Kaufert, and McKinlay to see whether Chinese midlife women’s frequency of reporting a range of physical and psychological symptoms is simi- lar to Japanese and different from Canadian and North American rates. METHODS Chinese sample This analysis examines data from a general population sample of 156 Chinese women between the ages of 45 and 55 in 1994. A total sample was taken from a block of an urban neighborhood (n ¼ 83) and from a rural village (n ¼ 73). Both were middle-class communities within the municipality of Beijing. Informed consent was requested, as per Harvard Uni- versity’s Institutional Review Board’s require- ments. Participation was over 90%. Women from various reproductive stages were in- cluded (34 premenopausal, 53 perimenopausal, and 62 naturally and 7 surgically postmeno- pausal). As typical for their age in China, the vast majority were married and most had given birth to two or three children. Although Contract grant sponsor: Mellon Foundation, FLAS, CSCC, NSF, Chiang Chingkuo Foundation, NIMH, Cora DuBois Trust, Freeman Foundation, Lintilhac Foundation, Parimitas, Univer- sity of Vermont Dean’s Fund. *Correspondence to: Jeanne L. Shea, Ph.D., Department of Anthropology, 515 Williams Hall, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont 05405. E-mail: jlshea@uvm.edu Received 2 July 2005; Revision accepted 7 November 2005; Accepted 16 November 2005 Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience. wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ajhb.20490 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY 18:219–222 (2006) V V C 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.