TonThirty years ago this week, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) introduced the bill to the U.S. Senate that would become the NIH Revitalization Act of 1993 — Transforming Women’s Health Research rules of the game. This landmark bill has helped dramatically improve the health of women in the United States and around the world.
If Roe v. Wade had not been overturned last June, this week would also mark its 50th anniversary, thrusting women’s health and healthcare into the spotlight and sparking a national political debate on women’s reproductive rights.
2022 will be marked by an increased focus on healthcare transformation, in part because of the many hard lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic. This includes identifying gaps in women’s health care, including gender bias and health inequities, that have long prevented women from receiving the quality health care they deserve.
advertise
Looking ahead, I believe that 2023 may be a watershed year for women’s health and wellness. With women making up more than half of the U.S. population, it’s time for women’s health to become more than just a niche market. Women’s health encompasses more than reproductive health, but it has long been viewed that way. The ability to make real progress depends on the input of healthcare leaders—listening to women, identifying the challenges they face and addressing them in meaningful ways, and investing in women and women entrepreneurs.
Below is a shortlist of what I think are the top areas to focus on this year to further transform women’s healthcare and unlock many valuable opportunities in the process.
advertise
Scaling up maternal and reproductive health
The US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is not only a historic and far-reaching decision: It also highlights the country’s maternal mortality crisis. The harsh reality is that the maternal mortality rate in the United States is more than three times higher than in 10 other high-income countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, and Germany. Black women are nearly three times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy-related complications.
Most pregnancy-related deaths in the United States are preventable. In other words, there is still a lot of work to be done.
Access to a regular doctor or place of care is critical to ensuring good health outcomes for women. However, in the United States, more than 19 million women of reproductive age live in contraceptive deserts, and about 1.2 million of them live in counties without a single health center offering a full range of contraceptive options. While a recent FDA ruling allowing retail pharmacies to sell mifepristone would expand access to medical abortion, some states have banned abortion altogether.Access to affordable contraceptives, family planning, and maternal health care is a basic need for women across the U.S.
Expand access to mental health resources
Covid-19 has triggered a surge in mental health problems, disproportionately affecting women. According to CARE’s Rapid Gender Analysis, the pandemic has three times the mental health impact on women’s lives than men’s, with women reporting higher rates of anxiety and depression. This makes sense, as women often face heightened stress and responsibilities during a pandemic, including adjusting to rapid school closures and homeschooling their children, while having to manage their own jobs and their families’ psychological responses to the evolving pandemic.
Even as the pandemic begins to subside in 2022, the country’s mental health crisis continues. According to the American Psychological Association’s 2022 Covid-19 Practitioner Impact Survey, treatment needs for trauma- and stressor-related disorders and substance use disorders remain high. Nearly half of mental health care providers are unable to meet treatment needs.
By 2023, I hope to see more solutions to the various mental health challenges women face. As companies leverage technology to develop solutions, it is clear that working with and hearing from mental health professionals will lead to putting patient safety first. Also needed: Addressing critical shortages of behavioral health providers, including expanding mental health services in the workplace, and improving the integration of behavioral health into primary care.
normalized aging
How women should age. However, there is still a lot of stigma around menopause and aging in the workplace. Women tend to peak their careers as they begin to experience menopause, which forces them to grapple with a host of unseen and visible symptoms, including hot flashes, mood changes and sleep problems. Many people are embarrassed to express these signs at work for fear of being “exposed” to menopause.
This fear is justified. In a 2022 study in the Harvard Business Review exploring stereotypes associated with menopause, both full-time employees and college students rated imaginary colleagues who were described as “menopausal women” Colleagues are less confident and emotionally unstable a “middle-aged woman”.
But there is more to the story. The researchers also found an effective strategy for overcoming this bias: When a woman said her hot flashes were caused by menopause, she was perceived as “more confident, stable and more leadership-like” than when she claimed to be “just warm.” By”. “
In short, normalizing menopause by talking about it at work can help improve perceptions of competence and leadership potential. But this requires employers to create psychologically safe workplaces where women can comfortably discuss issues and seek the support they need without fear of discrimination or reprisal.
Reimagine Healthcare
Women make up 60 percent of the U.S. workforce. As consumers, they make more than 80 percent of healthcare decisions – researching, analyzing and deciding on the best healthcare options for themselves as well as their partners, children and aging parents. As someone who has spent my career working to remove unnecessary barriers to healthcare, I say it’s time to reimagine healthcare in a way that delivers what women really need. I believe we will see more progress in this direction in 2023, but getting there will require addressing long-standing gender bias, prioritizing women’s health, and expanding equal access to healthcare for all women, regardless of gender. race, income, class or sexual orientation.
The results will ultimately lead to better outcomes for women: imagine reducing maternal mortality, expanding access to reproductive health care options, reducing anxiety and depression, and normalizing menopause so women can live longer, healthier lives , more substantial.
Michelle Carnahan is president of Thirty Madison, a family of specialty healthcare brands.
First Opinion Newsletter: If you enjoy reading opinion and perspective articles, get the weekly First Opinion roundup delivered to your inbox every Sunday. Sign up here.
