When you are working and raising young children, you have little time to think about your own health or your physical and mental needs. It is an oversight that is reinforced by social and cultural messages that encourage women to subsume their needs for others. We just get on with it.
Does this have an impact on our careers and our long-term health and happiness? Possibly.
Research from the McKinsey Health Institute shows that working-age women are not in the prime of their lives and may actually be in the prime of their health decline. Women live longer but spend 25 per cent more time in poor health than men, the study found, an average of nine years more.
And it is not towards the end of their lives that this “health gap” manifests itself but predominantly during women’s main working and childbearing years.
Addressing the women’s health gap could add €1 trillion to the global economy by 2040, according to the report Closing the Women’s Health Gap. “This estimate is probably conservative, given the historical underreporting and data gaps on women’s health conditions, which undercounts the prevalence of and undervalues the health burden of many conditions for women,” it said.
In Ireland, for example, the number of women in employment has more than doubled in the past 26 years to more than 1.3 million
The difference between health outcomes for men and women results from the structural and systematic barriers women face in terms of access to appropriate healthcare, lack of data and low investment in women’s health.
Women were largely invisible to the medical and scientific communities until three decades ago. They were considered “small men”, and the impact of their hormones and physical differences were not taken into account when trials were conducted to research disease, when teaching about symptoms, treatment and even medication dosages and their possible side effects.
When the scientific community woke up to the fact that women’s bodies were actually different from those of small men in 1993, women had already entered the workforce in large numbers. And the number has grown exponentially since then. In Ireland, for example, the number of women in employment has more than doubled in the past 26 years to more than 1.3 million.
Irish doctor Hazel Wallace, author of Not Just a Period, says women’s health is still not taken as seriously as men’s by the medical profession. Women are frequently misdiagnosed, their ailments dismissed and are patronised or laughed at.
This medical gaslighting, a failure to acknowledge their illness, and shame often prevent women from taking paid sick leave off. It’s not just frustrating, it’s harmful, as they’re not getting access to appropriate healthcare, says Wallace.
Women can lose years of their life to disability. The average length of time it takes to diagnose endometriosis is 10-35 years even though it affects 10 per cent of the 190 million women of childbearing age globally.
Endometriosis is a chronic disease that causes severe, life-impacting pain during periods, sex, bowel movements and/or urination, plus chronic pelvic pain, fatigue and sometimes depression, anxiety and infertility. It can start from a woman’s first period and last until menopause. There is no known cure but treatment can help control symptoms and pain. Yet many women are told it’s all in their head or that they’re being overly emotional. So they suffer decades of pain unnecessarily.
[ Can you afford to get sick in Ireland?Opens in new window ]
The types of medical care women receive also differ. Cardiovascular disease is the biggest killer of women globally yet heart attacks in women present differently. Women have a general feeling of discomfort, nausea or just feel something is off. Medical professionals are taught to look for a pain in the chest or arm, symptoms that are typical for men. As such, women are seven times more likely to die in an A&E due to heart attack because their symptoms are minimised or ignored.
How much stress, burnout, sick days and poor health might be prevented by doctors simply taking women’s health complaints seriously instead of gaslighting them?
Women’s poor health affects their partners’ and children’s lives too. If one of the main earners and carers in a family is regularly debilitated by pain, inevitably their partner needs to take sick days to care for them, their children or elderly relatives. They may even have to quit their jobs and depend on State supports.
Two-income families are a necessity for most people in modern Ireland. The Government, employers and doctors need to help ensure that women (and their partners) can keep earning and caring for loved ones throughout their lives.
Early detection and treatment of chronic conditions would increase productivity and the longevity of women’s careers and reduce the number of sick days each year, a financial and economic benefit for families, employers and the economy.
Society needs to focus on the root causes of the women’s health gap and help support them to live healthier, happier and more productive lives. One way to help improve things is to start collecting relevant data to inform policy.
Dr Sara Burke, director of the Centre for Health Policy and Management at Trinity College Dublin, says we are just at the beginning of trying to understand women’s health, or experience of health, and what the public policy response should be to improve it. Previously, medical tests and trials were only conducted on healthy white men of working age, so our understanding of gender-based health differences and outcomes is limited.
“Good data or information helps us understand what the problem is, and when it’s broken down by gender, age, disadvantage, ethnicity, that’s very helpful. It’s only when you have that data that you can you really understand what’s going on and begin doing something about it.”
Medical educators are also waking up to the issue. The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland’s School of Population Health recently launched a Women’s Health Research Network to promote and advance research dedicated to women’s health in Ireland. Dr Angela Flynn, cofounder of the network, said: “Women’s health has been underrepresented in Ireland’s research agenda for far too long. A long-term investment strategy is needed to secure dedicated funding from national agencies.”
Companies that address women’s health issues stand to make significant profits in the coming years
Women experience unique health challenges, yet many conditions remain poorly understood or lack tailored prevention, diagnosis and management strategies, according to the network.
“One in five women of reproductive age lives with obesity in Ireland, impacting reproductive health, pregnancy outcomes and intergenerational health. One in six couples in Ireland experiences infertility. Endometriosis affects an estimated 155,000 women.
“Heart disease and stroke account for a quarter of all female deaths in Ireland. Menopause increases the risk of osteoporosis and heart disease. Each year almost 3,600 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in Ireland – 30 per cent of all cancer diagnoses.”
According to the 2016 Healthy Ireland survey, young women – those aged 15-24 – have the highest levels of negative mental health.
Despite these figures global investment in research focusing on women’s health is less than 5 per cent of total research and development spending and it is mainly cancer-related, according to McKinsey.
Companies that address women’s health issues stand to make significant profits in the coming years. For too long, the beauty and fashion industries have been the only ones to gain from products and services targeting women. Venture capital firms and investors have largely failed to invest in women and in businesses that address women’s health, ignoring a potentially lucrative and powerful market.
Women are the biggest spenders in households and, despite the health gap, they are gaining in economic power too. Watch this space.
Margaret E Ward is chief executive of Clear Eye leadership consultancy. margaret@cleareye.ie
