Women’s Health is an Unfinished Puzzle—And We’re Still Missing Half the Pieces

Why Women’s Health is Still an Afterthought

Women’s health has long been sidelined—underfunded, under-researched, and deprioritized in clinical trials. While reports and whitepapers continue to outline the systemic issues, awareness isn’t enough. If it were, we wouldn’t still be here.

The healthcare system is riddled with gaps in data, misaligned incentives, and outdated assumptions that leave women struggling for accurate diagnoses, effective treatments, and fair reimbursement policies. We are not just behind—we are playing an entirely different game with half the rulebook missing.

How Women’s Health Got Stuck in a Loop

The same patterns keep repeating:

🔹 Women weren’t mandated to be included in clinical trials until 1993 → Today, we lack decades of essential health data.
🔹 Women’s conditions are often dismissed or misdiagnosed → They spend longer in the healthcare system searching for answers.
🔹 Insurance reimbursement models are gender-biased → Women’s procedures are often paid out at a lower rate than equivalent male procedures.
🔹 Reproductive health dominates the conversation → Menopause, cardiovascular disease, and autoimmune disorders remain neglected.

The result? We keep applying short-term fixes to a systemic failure.

The Economic Blind Spot for Women’s Health is Hurting Everyone

Women’s health isn’t just a social issue—it’s an economic and business imperative.
💰 Women control $30 trillion in global wealth and 80% of healthcare spending decisions.

💰 The average working woman in the US spends 18% more on healthcare costs than a man.

💰 The women’s health market is projected to reach $50 billion this year.

💰 Yet, less than 5% of all healthcare R&D funding goes toward conditions that exclusively or disproportionately affect women.

This isn’t just failing women—it’s holding back medical innovation and economic growth on a massive scale.

What Needs to Change in Women’s Health

Breast cancer activists proved that change doesn’t happen by waiting—it happens by demanding action. (More on this in next week’s article.)

If we want to see the same transformation across menopause, autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular health, and more, we need to:

✅ Fix the Money Flows – Research funding and reimbursement models must align with actual health needs, not outdated assumptions.
✅ Unite Key Players – Pharma, payers, investors, and policymakers need to work together—not in silos.
✅ Solve One Problem at a Time – Breast cancer advocacy didn’t change everything overnight. It focused, won key battles, then scaled.

Be Part of the Next Phase

🚀 No more reports. No more awareness campaigns. It’s time for action.

👇 What’s a discreet problem we can reasonably rally around today? Drop a comment or DM me—I want to hear from you.

Coming Next Week:

Breast cancer activists changed the healthcare landscape—so why aren’t we applying their lessons to other areas of women’s health? Stay tuned for next week’s deep dive into *how breast cancer advocacy reshaped funding, policy, and research—and what we can learn from it.”

Sources

Ballentine, Claire, Massive Wealth Transfer Will Give Women $34 Trillion by 2030, Bloomberg. 9 December 2024.

World Economic Forum, US women are paying billions more for healthcare than men every year, 18, October 2023

World Economic Forum, Femtech is transforming women's healthcare. But it must include everyone, 12, May 2023.

Funding research on women’s health. Nat Rev Bioeng 2, 797–798 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44222-024-00253-7 

Women's Health PAC NYSE Event on February 3, titled: How Menopause Is Sparking Bipartisan Progress for Women's Health - An Evening with Kate Ryder & Tamsen Fadal