6 Priorities for women and health
25 March 2021
Concrete action is needed to ensure women and girls in all their diversity can enjoy the right to health – during, and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite progress in gender equality, health equity and women’s health in the 25 years since the Beijing conference, global statistics continue to tell a disturbing story.
Over 800 women still die every day in pregnancy and childbirth – mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa; violence against women remains devastatingly pervasive, affecting 1 in 3 women globally; women make up 70% of workers in the health and social sector but occupy vastly fewer leadership roles than men and are paid less, even for the same work; and depression is twice as common among women as men.
Women and girls are also facing new and emerging health challenges, as the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates existing inequalities and disrupts access to vital health and support services.
The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action set out an ambitious plan of action for gender equality and women’s empowerment. Reflecting on what’s been achieved and what must change, we know there is still much to be done to achieve a healthier, safer and fairer world for all.
Here are six of our priorities for women and health worldwide:
Address gender inequality in the COVID-19 response and recovery
While COVID-19 mortality rates are higher among men than women, women are bearing the brunt of COVID-19’s social and economic consequences.
At home during lockdowns, women pick up the lion's share of unpaid care responsibilities, from childcare to looking after the sick and the elderly. Vital health and support services targeting women and girls have been severely disrupted, while reports of domestic violence have increased. Pregnant women have been specifically excluded from many treatment and vaccine trials.
This cannot continue. Women and girls have specific and diverse health needs which must be met now, and they have equal rights to participate in, and benefit from, global recovery efforts in a post-pandemic world.
This starts by ensuring essential health and support services for all women and girls, and prioritizing women’s health needs in global research and trials.
Elevate the position of women in the health and care workforce
Women have been at the forefront of the pandemic response. In many countries women make up 7 out of every 10 health and care workers, yet they occupy only an estimated 25% of global health leadership roles and often face high gender pay gaps.
Investing in equal pay – which includes recognizing unpaid health care work – is fair and urgent. It is also an important step in increasing the proportion of women in health and care leadership.
WHO has launched the Gender Equal Health and Care Workforce Initiative, to increase the participation of women health and care workers in leadership and decision-making roles. It supports equal pay and recognition of unpaid care, and aims to protect those who protect us by providing safe and decent working conditions, including access to personal protective equipment (PPE), COVID-19 vaccines, and protection against sexual harassment and violence at work.
Prevent and respond to violence against women
It took decades of struggle by the women’s rights movement, with other partners, to move violence against women from a “private matter” to a global public health and human rights priority. The devastating reported rates of violence on the rise during COVID-19 pose a great threat and are harmful to women, children and families.
Violence against women and girls starts early: this year, the biggest ever global study of the prevalence of violence against women from WHO found that nearly 1 in 4 adolescent girls who have had an intimate relationship have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner by the time they reach their mid-twenties.
Health systems can help women survivors of violence, and new WHO resources inform, advocate and strengthen violence prevention and care services.
WHO, with UN Women, is also leading the Generation Equality Action Coalition on Gender-Based Violence. The goal of all Action Coalitions is to deliver concrete and transformative change for women and girls around the world in the coming five years as we head into the Decade of Action on Sustainable Development.
Ensure quality sexual and reproductive health for all
Sexual and reproductive health services are quickly disrupted when health systems are under pressure. This is disempowering and dangerous. WHO recommends that access to contraception, safe abortion to the full extent allowed by law, prevention and treatment for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), care and support for violence survivors, and self-care interventions are prioritized in countries’ responses to COVID-19 – including for adolescents, who face specific challenges to their sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Pregnancy and childbirth are not put on pause in a pandemic. All women have the right to a safe and positive pregnancy and childbirth experience, whatever the circumstances these occcur in, and need high quality, respectful maternity care. This includes having a chosen labour companion. Evidence of unnecessary separations of women from their newborn babies during the pandemic are also highly concerning, bringing significant risks to health and well-being.
This all underscores the importance of strengthening primary health care and advancing universal health coverage and gender equality – as the Generation Equality Action Coalition on Bodily Autonomy and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights makes clear.
Reduce noncommunicable diseases among women
Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) have been a leading cause of death among women for decades, responsible for three in every four deaths among women each year. This burden is expected to increase substantially in the coming decades, especially in poorer countries.
Policies and programmes that prevent and respond to NCDs need to consider the specific needs of women and girls. For instance, physical activity is a pivotal risk factor for NCD deaths worldwide, but women and girls are generally less active than men and boys as a result of harmful gender norms that limit both their mobility and equal participation in physical activities like sports.
Obesity in women, especially during pregnancy, contributes to the health risks of their children and amplifies health inequities across generations.
To overcome the challenge of NCDs, we also need greater attention and investment in the health issues that generally, though not exclusively, affect women.
Last year, WHO launched the Global Strategy to Accelerate the Elimination of Cervical Cancer, a preventable and curable disease which disproportionately affects women in low- and middle-income countries. In 2021, a new WHO Global Breast Cancer Initiative aims to reduce global breast cancer mortality by 2.5% per year until 2040 – averting an estimated 2.5 million deaths.
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Increase women’s participation and leadership in science and public health
WHO believes in the power of science and innovation to improve global health in every country.
From critical contributions to COVID-19 vaccine development to groundbreaking work on our understanding of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, women in science are pushing the boundaries of knowledge and safeguarding public health.
At the same time, lack of gender equality in science – in positions of leadership and also in clinical trials – is persistent and troubling. Despite increasing evidence of the influence of sex and gender dimensions on pharmaceutical outcomes, women’s inclusion remains low in clinical trials. Equitable authorship of scientific publications is also low, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
WHO is committed to strengthening capacity for scientific research, and to unpicking the barriers to women’s full and meaningful participation and leadership in the scientific realm.