Inequalities across the continent: research, women and health.
Day 3 of our delegation to HLTH Europe
This week on our delegation to HLTH Europe, I was delighted to see so many events focussing on women’s health. Our Health Equity North Woman of the North report, released last September, shone a spotlight on the stark inequalities women in the North of England are facing in areas such as life expectancy, domestic violence, wages, unpaid care, mental health and more. The evidence was conclusive: women continue to experience deep-rooted and unfair outcomes, to the detriment of their health, wellbeing and safety.
The report set out clear recommendations to address these disparities, including for the health ecosystem to explore ways in which their work can be adapted to address health inequalities across different population groups.
With this in mind, I ensured that our journey to HLTH Europe would focus heavily on a series of events based around on health inequalities women experience, and how the health sector can work together to close this gap.
An event with NHS GPs alongside various global health representatives touched on the inequalities women, particularly marginalised women, face no matter where they are from. Globally, women are on average waiting four times longer for a diagnosis than men, and where you live and how much you earn impacts your chances of recovery from diseases and health complications – a fact that no country is excluded from.
A panel event on neurodiversity also explained how traditionally, health research for neurodiverse conditions such as ADHD and autism have centred around men and boys. Not so long ago, 9 out of 10 pieces of research in this area favoured males. There is good news – this gap is closing, and today that statistic is now closer to 6 out of 10, showing that research in this area of health is edging towards equality.
A highlight of the event was watching the Women’s Health Ambassador for England Professor Dame Lesley Regan – who delivered the keynote speech at our Woman of the North parliamentary event last year – take part in a panel discussion about improving services for and destigmatising menopause. Professor Regan spoke about her campaign to change accreditation for GPs to be trained in obstetrics and gynaecology, so they can best support women who present with problems such as menopause. She also advocated for all healthcare professionals to ask patients about periods and period problems more – not just those in women’s health – so that women have as many opportunities to be signposted to the services that can help them. She struck a chord when she suggested that we need to wrap services around women, instead of making women work hard to just be heard – a fundamental principle of our Woman of the North work.
As well as these fantastic panel events, we had plenty of opportunities at the women’s networking events held by HTLH. We met with women pioneering solutions, research and equality from all the corners of the globe, and being able to have insight into what other countries are doing to champion women’s health. There’s plenty of knowledge to come away with, and we have a continued hope that such a collective stronghold of passionate women pushing for change will result in tangible differences for us all.
Our Woman of the North report was a great success in raising awareness of the vast inequalities women, especially those in the North of England, are facing. The Health Equity North team works tirelessly for policy change and to get our inequalities research under the noses of the right people. It’s easy to look around and think, in term’s of women’s equality, that nothing much changes, and that not everyone is receptive to what we are saying. Being at HLTH, hearing from inspirational women about how women’s healthcare is advancing, it’s reassuring to know we are not alone – the time for women to stand up and be prioritised is now, and this is an exciting journey to be part of.
We have made strong and important connections this week that will see us expand our mission for gendered health equity to include the right people in the right spaces. We look forward to sharing our progress on our women’s health work following our HLTH delegation, and are excited for the prospects ahead of us.
