Quiz: How Much Do You Know About Women’s Health?

Women who are caregivers are at greater risk of developing mental health conditions. In the U.S., two of every three caregivers are women. Globally, women make up 67% of the health and social care workforce, providing essential health services for 5 billion people around the world.

In high-income countries, a women’s risk of death due to pregnancy is 1 in 5,300, versus 1 in 49 in low-income countries. That’s about 108 women in a low-income country for every one woman in a high-income country.

Why is the difference so drastic? Women in low-income countries have more pregnancies on average, and they’re also less likely to have skilled care. Only 68% of births are attended by trained health workers, while in high-income countries, 99% of births are in the presence of skilled care.

Women are disproportionately vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Climate change has serious implications for maternal and reproductive health. Research has shown that women and girls are also more likely to experience food insecurity, 14 times more likely to die in extreme disaster, and more likely to feel the mental health impacts of climate change.

It’s also harder for women to migrate away from places prone to climate change and disaster — and if they do leave, they face heightened risks of human trafficking and gender-based violence. They will also have a harder time finding new work.

Women are more likely to experience mental health conditions in general and twice as likely to experience depression.

Researchers point to a list of gender-specific risks and social distresses to help explain the trend, including the disproportionate responsibility for the household and caregiving, socioeconomic disadvantages, income inequality, and low status and rank, as well as gender-based violence.

It’s estimated that some 736 million women will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. In 2023, this violence escalated to femicide for at least 51,100 women. The risk of exposure to gender-based violence increases when women are displaced and traveling alone, or when women are isolated with their domestic partners, and during times of crisis. The United Nations reports that cases of GBV in conflict zones increased by 50% between 2020 and 2022.

Gender-based violence is a flagrant violation of human rights, and there are a myriad of lifelong health consequences including injury, pregnancy, and mental health conditions like depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Women are twice as likely as men to experience depression and affected by PTSD more than any other group of people.

In the U.S., it wasn’t until the passage of the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act in 1993 that women and people of color had to be represented in federally funded research.

And there are still huge gaps in knowledge on women’s health. As scientists race to catch up, women live the consequences every day. For example, it can take years for women to get properly diagnosed with autoimmune diseases (which impact more women than men) and as long as a decade to be diagnosed with conditions like endometriosis, one of the most common gynecological diseases.

Heart disease is the leading cause of premature death for women living in the U.S., responsible for around. And research suggests mental health can impact heart health, particularly for women, which is especially alarming.

If you’re still wondering why it matters that women be included in clinical research, consider the 2021 study that finds doctors may have been using the wrong metric for women’s blood pressure — that the target systolic blood pressure for women should be less than 110, not less than 120 like it is for men. This means many women at risk of heart disease have gone without preventative care.