Conversations on Health | Rebuilding trust with women: Reflections on Davos

As part of our McKinsey Health Institute (MHI) Conversations on Health series, we asked Lucy Perez , Megan Greenfield, Ph.D. , Valentina Sartori and Anouk Petersen to reflect on the recently concluded 54th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum , where top decision-makers from business, government, civil society, media, and academia convened to address major global issues and priorities for the year ahead.

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Last week in Davos, the McKinsey Health Institute launched groundbreaking global research in collaboration with the World Economic Forum sizing the health and economic returns of closing the women's health gap. In the short time since launch, this work has led to a groundswell of conversations about why women spend 25 percent more time than men, on average, in poor health - and the actions needed to close this gap. ?

The launch came against the backdrop of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting theme of “rebuilding trust.” While most of the conversations anchored on this theme tackled major business and geopolitical challenges, our research suggests that rebuilding trust with women, whether through research, in a clinical setting, or at a policy level - is needed to make progress. Good health is the foundation of everything.??

Women’s health is more than sexual and reproductive health. As health leaders, it is our perspective that rebuilding women’s trust begins by caring about their health and well-being. Here’s how:??

LISTEN to women: women are not making up their symptoms.??

Women often face barriers, stigma and bias in healthcare systems designed and run by men, which means women are less likely to receive the same intervention for a given disease. For example, managing heart disease is an area with potential for great improvement. A US study found that women with coronary heart disease were significantly less likely than men to be administered aspirin regularly despite its benefits.1 Women’s pain is routinely dismissed and they are told that their discomfort is “just in their head.”? For example, at least 1 in 10 women have endometriosis—an agonizingly painful disease--yet the average time to diagnosis is 10 years because their symptoms are often minimized and confounded with normal period pain.?

Action: We must enhance access to gender-specific care (for example, menopause-informed providers). This includes preventive care, accurate diagnoses, and equitable treatment. We need to educate medical providers on the differences between genders and provide them with information on how to best address women’s health conditions.?

STUDY women: women are not just smaller men ?

Historically, the study of human biology defaults to the male body, which hinders understanding of sex-based biological differences and results in many treatments being less effective for women than for men. We now know that the majority of diseases manifest differently or disproportionately in women – our differences are not just in reproductive organs!??

Despite our biological differences, only half of publications reviewed have sex-disaggregated data and of those two-thirds of interventions are less effective for women than men. One example is that combined inhalers for asthma which have a 20 percentage points lower effectiveness for women than men.? ?

The lack of research on women also manifests in drug market withdrawals: A study shows that since 1980, drugs are 3.5x more likely to be withdrawn from the market due to women’s health risks than risks related to men’s health.?

Furthermore, health burdens for women are systematically underestimated, with datasets that exclude or undervalue important conditions. For example, there is a variance between reported endometriosis cases: According to the World Health Organization, 10 percent of women of reproductive age are living with endometriosis, while the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (Global Burden of Disease) estimates this figure to be 1 to 2 percent. This discrepancy—an eightfold difference—means there could be anywhere from 24 million to 190 million women affected worldwide.?

Action: Systematically collect and analyze sex-, ethnicity- and gender-specific data to have a more accurate representation of women’s health burden and the impact of different interventions.?

INVEST in women’s health: women’s health is not a “niche market”?

Investment in women's health conditions has been much lower than their prevalence, which would suggest a less scientific understanding of women’s bodies and limited data to inform and de-risk new investments.? Our report demonstrates that for every $1 invested in women’s health you get $3.?

Action: Invest in women-centric research to fill the knowledge and data gaps in women-specific conditions, as well as in diseases affecting women differently and/or disproportionately.?

Rebuild trust with women by making women’s health a priority?

For centuries, women’s health has been marginalized or seen as exclusive to reproduction. In order to rebuild trust among women, change begins acknowledging that a path forward requires a mindset and complete paradigm shift. There is vast potential in research, medicine, and policy that would not only improve women’s lives, giving them an additional 7 days per year of high-quality life, but boost the economy. The time for action is now.?

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