Addressing Disparities in Health Care

Too often, women’s health is thought of as those conditions exclusively affecting women—maternal care and breast care, as examples. But there are important gender differences in disease progression, symptomatology, and treatment across a broad range of conditions that affect both men and women—from cardiovascular disease to cancer to neurological disorders. Despite these known differences, many commonly used treatment approaches were developed predominantly through research on men and may not be as successful when administered to women.

Research on disparities between how women and men are treated in medical settings is also growing. The medical profession has come to realize that one of the most pervasive implicit biases—unconscious biases that are usually not linked to consciously held prejudiced attitudes—in the medical system relates to gender specifically. Studies show:

• Both doctors and nurses prescribe less pain medication to women than men after surgery, even though women report more frequent and severe pain levels. In a survey of more than 2,400 women with chronic pain, 83% said they felt they had experienced gender discrimination from their health care providers.

• A University of Pennsylvania study found that women waited 16 minutes longer than men to receive pain medication when they visited an Emergency Room. Women are also more likely to be told their pain is “psychosomatic,” or influenced by emotional distress.

• A Yale cardiology study found that many women hesitated to seek help for a heart attack because they worried about being thought of as hypochondriacs.

This understanding that women have different health care needs than men—and that they’re often not taken as seriously as their male counterparts when reporting symptoms—has fostered important changes in clinical care for women.