The gender gaps in healthcare range from access to diagnosis, data, leadership, representation and treatment.

The gendered gap in healthcare for those identifying as women from diagnosis, pain treatment, mortality, costs, coverage and data to representation in the industry as well as leadership is both an historical and current critical issue—one literally of life and death.

The need for parity in all aspects of health for women is a topic at Take The Lead’s Power Up Concert & Conference event on Women’s Equality Day in Washington, D.C. Speakers and panelists include Dr. Sophia Yen, MD, co-founder and chief medical officer of Pandia Health; who is receiving the Leading Company Award; Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, MD, author, CEO and founder of Adesso & Heart; and Dr. DeShawn Taylor, MD., author and founder of Health Justice MD. Dr. Taylor is receiving the Disrupter Award as the Embrace Controversy Power Tool Champion at the conference.

More details here on the Power Up Concert & Conference August 25-26

Take The Lead has been working to close the gap for women in healthcare with the recent series of workshops, 50 Women Can Change The World In Healthcare and Medicine.

“Healthcare needs strong, innovative leaders who can lead the field forward,” says Gloria Feldt, co-founder and president of Take The Lead. “While women are 80% of healthcare workers and earn 84% of bachelor’s degrees in the health professions, we are still a long way from gender parity in healthcare leadership.”

““Healthcare needs strong, innovative leaders who can lead the field forward,” says @GloriaFeldt, co-founder and president of @Takeleadwomen. #womenshealth”

The insights and strategies from healthcare leaders, entrepreneurs and innovators shared at the 2024 Power Up Conference with the theme, “Together We Lead,” will offer insights to closing the health gap in the U.S. that includes several different aspects of healthcare.

Equality gaps exist in how much employers pay for women’s coverage, compared to men’s. According to the World Economic Forum, companies pay $1.34 billion less for women than men, while women’s out-of-pocket healthcare costs are 18% more than men’s.

New research by Deloitte shows that for women, the out-of-pocket cost is 18% more, adding up to an estimated $15 billion more each year on healthcare costs than working men. Those amounts exclude maternal care, with the average woman spending nearly $300 per year more than men on healthcare.

“According to the @WEF, companies pay $1.34 billion less for women than men, while women’s out-of-pocket #healthcare costs are 18% more than men’s. #inequity”

These lifetime costs are exacerbated by the fact that women live longer than men. “A May 2024 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded study published in The Lancet, also found that women live longer than men, but spend more of their lives in poor health,” WEF reports.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2023, “finds that efforts to close the gender gap are stalling and will take an additional 131 years to reach parity. The gap explicitly relating to health and survival is 96% closed,” the WEF reports.

Dr. Uche Blackstock, MD, founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, and author of Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine writes in Next Idea, “If you are a patient of color, your chances of misdiagnosis are greater than white patients, and you have higher odds of suffering greater harm from diagnostic errors. This holds true despite educational level of attainment or socioeconomic status.”

Watch Gloria Feldt’s Podcast with Dr. Uche Blackstock on Equity in Healthcare and Medicine

There is incentive to close the gap, and not just for justice and fairness, but because it is economically positive. “Bridging the gap could even boost the global economy by $1 trillion by 2040 from fewer early deaths and health conditions, and a greater capacity for women to contribute to the economy and society,” finds Closing the Women’s Health Gap: A $1 Trillion Opportunity to Improve Lives and Economies.

Leadership in healthcare institutions, organization, companies and enterprises is not representative of the population or of gender equity.

“Leadership in #healthcare institutions, organization, companies and enterprises is not representative of the population or of #genderequity.”

According to a recent McKinsey report, “Women in senior-level roles in healthcare are predominantly White,” with only 4 percent of C-suite healthcare executives who are women of color.”

The report states that only “32 percent of healthcare board members are women; of those, only 8 percent are women of color.” This does not improve throughout the pipeline. “Representation of women of color drops steadily—and more sharply than overall industry averages—at each successive career step, from entry level (26 percent) to C-suite roles (4 percent).”

At health care professional entry levels, 75 percent are women, then shifts to 70 percent at the manager level and senior manager or director at 61 percent. Just 45 percent of vice presidents are women.

This persists with AI-backed information. Dr. Shika Jain, MD., founder of Women in Medicine Summit, writes recently in Ms., “Although ChatGPT uses a female voice, it doesn’t want a female doctor. When planning this year’s Women in Medicine Summit, we decided to ask ChatGPT to suggest prominent women physicians who could potentially speak at the conference in September.”

“The #gendergaps in healthcare range from access to diagnosis, data, #leadership, representation and treatment.”

It came up with only one response, and she was no longer living.

“ChatGPT is not the first technology to expose gender inequity. With the rise in use of social media by medical professionals, experts argued it would level the playing field. Our research showed it did not and only exacerbated existing inequities.”

Jain writes, “A recent report from U.N. Women summed it up best: ‘The world has a gender equality problem, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) mirrors the gender bias in our society.’”

The gender gap is also replicated in how women are treated by physicians and how often their complaints—of pain in particular—are dismissed. A 2022 study from the Journal of the American Heart Association reported that “women who visited emergency departments with chest pain waited 29% longer than men to be evaluated for possible heart attacks,” according to Heart.org.

“The #gendergap is also replicated in how women are treated by physicians and how often their complaints—of pain in particular—are dismissed. ”

“Another study showed that middle-aged women complaining of chest pain were twice as likely as their male counterparts with the same symptoms to be diagnosed with a mental illness. Dismissive attitudes toward women's pain have been shown to affect treatment for a variety of health issues, including stroke, reproductive health, chronic illnesses and physical pain, among other things.”

The gender inequality of U.S. healthcare is also rooted in data collection. McKinsey reports that closing this gap in research is essential to maintaining quality care for women, as well as lowering health disparities and improving overall health outcomes.

“These data disparities ultimately influence health outcomes for women globally by creating blind spots in the insights that drive research design, investment decisions, and pipeline priorities. Certain subsets of women, such as those of different backgrounds, sexual orientations, and gender identities, are more vulnerable to the gaps and negative effects of these blind spots,” according to McKinsey.

To jumpstart research involving women’s healthcare, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently announced $100 million in investment in women’s health research.

The Commonwealth Fund recently released the State Scorecard on Women’s Health and Reproductive Care, showing the best and worst states for women’s health. “The highest maternal death rates were in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Vermont, California, and Connecticut had the lowest rates. Nationally, rates were highest for Black and American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) women.”

“The gender #inequality of U.S. #healthcare is also rooted in data collection.”

The study shows, “Massachusetts is the best-performing health system for women overall, ranking among the top states on each of the three dimensions of health system performance. Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire rounded out the top five.”

According to the Commonwealth Fund, “The lowest-ranked states overall are Mississippi, Texas, Nevada, Oklahoma and Arkansas.”

Blackstock writes, “Until our social institutions, leaders, and communities reckon with the harm that racism continues to cause—and respond appropriately through equitable practices and policies—this country will continue to see these appalling differences in health outcomes between racial demographic groups.”

Geography, identity, age, gender and race are contributing factors to healthcare inequity expressed in many different levels of health treatment, leadership and awareness. Speakers, facilitators and participants in The Power Up Conference, “Together We Lead,” engage in discussions on solutions to reach equity for the benefit of everyone.

“Speakers, facilitators and participants in The #PowerUp Conference, “Together We Lead,” engage in discussions on solutions to reach #healthequity for the benefit of everyone. ”

Leadership Takeaway of The Week:

“Until our social institutions, leaders, and communities reckon with the harm that racism continues to cause—and respond appropriately through equitable practices and policies—this country will continue to see these appalling differences in health outcomes between racial demographic groups.”

—Dr. Uche Blackstock, MD, author and founder/CEO of Advancing Health Equity

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About the Author

Michele Weldon is editorial director of Take The Lead, an award-winning author, journalist, emerita faculty in journalism at Northwestern University and a senior leader with The OpEd Project. @micheleweldon www.micheleweldon.com