Gender health disparities affect everyone, including families, communities, workplaces, and society. Yet millions of women around the world lack access to the health care, treatment and support they need at every stage of life.
Solving this problem was the focus of our discussions at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where we participated in a session called “Closing the Gender Health Gap.”
How to achieve gender health equality…Panel at Davos 2024.Image: World Economic Forum
At Davos, a new report was released by the Forum and the McKinsey Institute for Health Research entitled “Closing Women's Health Disparities: A $1 Trillion Opportunity to Improve Lives and the Economy.”
Although only 1% of the world's healthcare research and development is focused on diseases unique to women, this research can inform action to close gender health disparities and achieve health equality for men and women. highlights an important need.
Diagnosing health disparities between men and women
The report found that even though women have longer life expectancies than men, they spend more than 25% of their lives in poor health.
How much money goes into women's health research?Image: McKinsey & Company
According to the World Health Organization, poor sanitation kills 1.4 million people a year, with women and girls bearing a disproportionate burden. On the other hand, diseases such as premenstrual syndrome, depression, and gynecological diseases are among the main diseases that limit women's contribution to GDP growth.
Lack of access to water and sanitation poses a threat to the health and physical safety of women and girls in India. In response, the Indian government built 110 million toilets and provided 130 million potable water connections to address the issue.
In addition, wellness centers and health insurance schemes provide support to nearly 146 million women in the country. Her focus on preventive care has resulted in her 168 million breast cancer screenings and her 113 million cervical cancer screenings. Such measures also encourage women to become healthy members of the workforce and empower them economically.
Additionally, Poshan Abhiyan, India's National Nutrition Mission, has provided assistance to over 25 million pregnant women and lactating mothers.
Such programs help break down the social stigma surrounding women's health care and encourage women to receive medical care and other social services.
The global health burden extends not only to affected women but also to broader society.as Closing the health gap for women The report states: “Women's health disparities affect not only women's quality of life, but also their economic participation and ability to earn a living for themselves and their families. Health is linked to economic productivity, prosperity and prospects and its contribution to economic output.” ”
Closing the health gap between men and women would not only avoid years of life lost each year to poor health and premature death, but also enable women to participate more actively in the workforce and contribute to growth.
We need to stop seeing this challenge as a women's solution. We are solving this problem for the whole nation.
Treatment of symptoms
The challenge of improving women's health care is not limited to conducting more research or providing more treatments, drugs, and infrastructure; it is also a matter of policy and awareness. We need to change public perceptions of society and, in turn, policies and decision-making regarding women-specific health care.
Efforts like the World Economic Forum's Global Alliance for Women's Health, launched at Davos in collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other partners, require the support of stakeholders across the medical community. Together, we encourage women to build trust and encourage investment in women's health.
The Alliance aims to provide the impetus for public-private partnerships essential to delivering the funding and innovation needed to transform health systems and make them more responsive to women's health needs.
This will help health authorities promote a more strategic approach to women's preventive health care in a variety of ways. This includes increasing global awareness of women-specific health issues in different regions and identifying common red flags.
The collaboration also allows us to collect rich sources of data from global health systems that may not otherwise be available, which can inform future plans and procedures.
And most importantly, we focus on how we can combine and deliver the necessary specialties to address specific healthcare challenges from a gender perspective.
written by
Smriti Zubin IraniMinister of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Women and Child Development, India
Shyam Bishen, Director of the Health and Medical Center.World Economic Forum Executive Committee Member
Website
This article was originally world economic forum February 21, 2024.
