At Independence Blue Cross (IBX), we’ve made a robust dedication to advancing well being fairness within the communities we serve. That begins with acknowledging well being inequities wherever they exist.
In our earlier health equity blogs, we’ve mentioned challenges in such various areas as behavioral well being, maternal well being, breastfeeding, well being literacy, and LGBTQIA+ well being. On this one, we’d wish to concentrate on ladies1 — a inhabitants that has traditionally skilled, and continues to expertise, inequities in well being care.
We comprise half of the U.S. inhabitants, however:
- Our well being care experiences aren’t as constructive as they need to be.
- Our well being wants haven’t been studied as completely.
- We frequently discover it tougher to entry care.
It’s time to shut these gaps.
Signs Ignored in Well being Care Settings
Women often have their symptoms downplayed or dismissed by well being care professionals. That is an goal, well-established phenomenon that impacts the care ladies obtain. Even women physicians experience this. I’ve skilled it myself.
This isn’t meant as a criticism of well being care professionals. There are nonetheless imbalances in our society that stem from patriarchal norms. It doesn’t matter what our gender is, we’re all uncovered to cultural biases our complete lives that may unconsciously colour our attitudes and selections.
And these biases clearly come into play within the well being care enviornment. In response to a Kaiser Family Foundation study:
- 29 p.c of girls aged 40 – 64 mentioned their physician didn’t hearken to their well being considerations, in comparison with 21 p.c of males.
- 19 p.c of girls famous that their physician had made assumptions about them with out asking.
- 13 p.c mentioned their well being care suppliers had blamed them for his or her well being issues.
- These destructive experiences have been much more widespread amongst ladies aged 18 – 35, ladies of colour, ladies in lower-income households, and ladies who have been uninsured.
Gender biases additionally have an effect on the care we obtain. As an example, in comparison with males, ladies are much less prone to be prescribed medication to manage chronic pain or recommended to receive knee replacements.
Furthermore:
- Solely 35 p.c of girls aged 40 – 64 say they have been informed what to expect during menopause.
- It wasn’t till August 2024 that the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention started recommending anesthesia for girls throughout intrauterine gadget (IUD) insertion, which could be extraordinarily painful.
- And the U.S. has a higher maternal mortality rate than most different developed nations, particularly amongst Black ladies.
These are all good indicators that girls’s well being wants aren’t being prioritized the way in which they need to be.
Neglected in Medical Analysis
Earlier than 1986, women were very rarely included in clinical trials. Possibly researchers assumed that we’d reply to therapies the identical means males do. Nevertheless, that’s not the case. For instance, we usually expertise more negative drug reactions than males.
In 1986, the Nationwide Institutes of Well being started encouraging researchers to incorporate extra ladies in medical research. Nevertheless, even as we speak, we’re still underrepresented. And analysis into ladies’s well being has additionally been chronically underfunded, particularly with regards to older women. So, in lots of areas, not almost sufficient is understood about our well being wants.
Crucial Well being Points Go Underdiagnosed
Heart problems is the number one cause of death in both men and women, however analysis exhibits that it’s underdiagnosed in women. The explanations for this are complicated. However, for instance, the symptoms of heart attacks often differ between women and men. Each sexes normally expertise chest ache, however ladies usually tend to additionally expertise nausea, sweating, vomiting, and neck, jaw, throat, stomach, or again ache.
Ladies even have different risk factors for heart attacks. For instance, if we’ve had endometriosis, preeclampsia, or gestational diabetes, we’re at the next threat of coronary heart assault, chest ache, or blocked arteries.
And if underdiagnoses happen with one thing as prevalent and well-understood as coronary heart illness, different well being situations are additionally prone to go underdiagnosed in ladies. Well being professionals who don’t take gender variations in signs and threat components under consideration could make diagnostic errors, or ship feminine sufferers house with no analysis in any respect.
Ladies are additionally underdiagnosed with:
- Endometriosis, a critical and painful situation by which cells which can be speculated to kind contained in the uterus start to develop in different areas the place they don’t belong.
- Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which manifests otherwise in ladies than in males.
- Serious mental illness, which is sort of twice as widespread amongst ladies. In response to the Substance Abuse and Psychological Well being Providers Administration (SAMHSA), seven p.c of U.S. ladies have a number of behavioral well being issues versus 4 p.c of males.
Unequal Entry to Care
There’s much more that may very well be mentioned about inequities in ladies’s well being care. However for now, I’d identical to to make a number of further factors:
While you consider our all-too-common expertise of not being listened to in well being care settings, it’s no shock that we often neglect or defer our own health needs.
We should advocate to have our signs taken significantly and get the therapies we’d like. We should push for higher inclusion in medical analysis. We should prioritize our well being regardless of all of the limitations we face. And we should work to create a society by which our well being wants are valued and revered.
1For the needs of this text, by “ladies” I imply cisgender ladies. It’s nicely documented that transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming people expertise their very own important well being inequities, and we’ve mentioned that in other blogs.
