Women’s Health
What is Women’s Health?
Women’s health focuses on treating and diagnosing diseases and conditions that affect women (Arber, 2018). This includes a wide variety of focus areas including breast cancer, ovarian cancer, menopause, osteoporosis, sexual health, birth control, and pregnancy and childbirth (Arber, 2018).
What Inequalities Exist in Women’s Health?
Unfortunately, there are still many inequalities between men and women, and within women, there is even greater inequality between different socio-economic status, ethnicity, and geographical location (Allen & Sesti, 2018). Some data is starting to show that women’s life expectancy is no longer greater than men’s life expectancy (Allen & Sesti, 2018). Women are at greater risk for dementia (especially poorer women), they are more likely to live with disability, are more likely to suffer from a mental illness, and women’s complaints of pain are not taken as seriously in health care (Allen & Sesti, 2018). To this day, there are still around 800 women who die every day because of pregnancy and childbirth (World Health Organization [WHO], 2022).
Some ways the gap can be closed is to improve education, building greater relationships with female patients, enhancing health care itself (better funding, employment, etc.), and by advocating for women’s health (Allen & Sesti, 2018).
What is Being Done to Improve Women’s Health?
The World Health Organization has set out six priorities for women’s health worldwide. The priorities are as follows (WHO, 2022):
6. Noncommunicable diseases are responsible for 3 in every 4 deaths in women every year. Providing services and care for those with noncommunicable diseases is essential.
References
Allen, J., & Sesti, F. (2018). Health inequalities and women – addressing unmet needs. British Medical Association. https://www.bma.org.uk/media/2116/bma-womens-health-inequalities-report-aug-2018.pdf
Arber, S. (2018). Opening the ‘black box’: inequalities in women’s health. In P. Abbott’s and G.Payne’s (Eds.), New directions in the sociology of health. Routledge.
World Health Organization (2022). 6 priorities for women and health.
https://www.who.int/news-room/spotlight/6-priorities-for-women-and-health
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