Breaking the Frame of Women’s Health
When you hear Women’s Health, is it only reproductive organs and, maybe, breast health, that come to mind?
Defining women’s health solely through the lens of gynecological or reproductive health is too narrow.
We are breaking the frame and embracing a broader definition that includes how diseases impact women differently, how the healthcare system treats women differently, and the pink tax we pay.
Founders Halle Tecco and Julia Cheek of Everly Health shared thought leadership on how to define women’s health. They were told women’s health is “niche”.
Hmmm, “niche” for 50% of the world’s population.
We love their take on this topic and decided to further explore our own definition.
In organizing our thoughts and research into where the growing investment into women's health and FemTech is going, we found FemTech Analytic’s categorization of the 10 subsectors particularly intriguing:
Menstrual Health
Reproductive Health & Contraception
Longevity
Pregnancy & Nursing,
General Health Care
Mental Health
Menopause Care
Sexual Health
Pelvic and Uterine Care
Women's Wellness.
That’s just the start. We need to raise the bar on the outcomes needed. Get better educated. Expect more from the medical community.
Why does breaking the frame of women’s health matter?
What the health? Underfunding and lack of research might kill you.
The CDC announced that more than 80% of pregnancy-related deaths are preventable in the United States. How is it possible maternal health is in such bad shape?
According to a study published in the American Family Physician, women are “50 to 75 percent more likely than men to experience an adverse drug reaction”.
One would think facts like that would impact different dosages or instructions for medication. Except that, as Daniela Schardinger so eloquently described in her opinion piece in Geektime, women’s health is under-researched and underfunded.
Women report their symptoms are ignored and dismissed by the medical community. They wait longer in emergency rooms and it takes longer to get conditios diagnosed.
Stories like those told in the New York Times article “Half the World Has a Clitoris. Why Don’t Doctors Study It?”, are harrowing and all too common.
One Size Fits All Medical Training and Medical Trials Hurts Everyone
We’re frustrated that healthcare has often revolved around the male body and experience - the assumption being made that men and women experience symptoms, pain, medications, etc all the same. The medical community has learned - generally - that there are differences between men and women (shocking) and that more customized treatments or diagnoses must be considered.
We can also look at this from a different angle. Women may be more included now, but does that extend to all women?
Using the same logic that women experience and present with symptoms differently than men, then women of different races, ethnicities, skin color, also will present with and experience symptoms differently.
Analysis of medical textbooks and included imagery have indicated that skin tones referenced overrepresent light skin tones and underrepresent darker skin tones. Specifically for external conditions, this underrepresentation can make it difficult for doctors to identify things like melanomas or abnormalities because they haven’t been taught what those look like.
This is just one contributing cause to many of the racial disparities in healthcare. Inclusion in clinical trials is also critical to reducing disparities. While the inclusion and participation of women overall is up, the inclusion of women of color has much room for improvement. Consider these stats from the Society for Women's Health Research article:
Participation of women in clinical trials is up in gynecological and neurology studies, but continue to be underrepresented in cardiovascular disease and infectious disease trials
8% of clinical trial participants in 2020 were Black or African American (yet they make up 13% of the US population)
Hispanic participation in clinical trials dropped from 18% in 2019 to 11% in 2020
A 2022 study outlines specific barriers to clinical trial participation, including systemic barriers and barriers in trial design, as well as specific action items to address barriers directly. It's a necessary start to ensuring that we’re getting greater representation of all people in clinical trials and medical education so that our system can provide better care for everyone – closing the gap in health disparities and care.
What can we do to change this?
Check out the Starr Coalition's list of organizations promoting greater inclusion in healthcare
Continue talking about our experences. Everyone’s journey with their health is different, and we can only continue to learn more about how these impact each other. Just because we may have the same diagnosis as someone, doesn’t mean we experience the exact same symptoms.
Share our work here at Eve Was Framed with your family and friends. Join us in changing the conversation on women’s health.