Blueprint to Close the Women’s Health Gap: How to Improve Lives and Economies for All

The World Economic Forum, in collaboration with the McKinsey Health Institute, presents a distinctive report that underscores the economic and societal potential of closing the women’s health gap and tracks the progress towards doing so using novel metrics and insights.

Focused on nine key conditions – breast cancer, cervical cancer, menopause, endometriosis, premenstrual syndrome, post-partum haemorrhage, maternal hypertensive disorder, migraine and ischaemic heart disease – that drive a third of the women’s health gap, the report outlines actionable solutions to address disparities in treatment, care delivery, data and funding. Closing this gap could add almost 27 million disability-adjusted life years annually (equating to 2.5 additional healthy days per woman) and $400 billion to global GDP by 2040, and improve the quality of life for women worldwide.

The report introduces the Women’s Health Impact Tracking (WHIT) platform, a pioneering tool to measure and track health gaps for women. It emphasizes five key actions: count women (measure women’s health and health outcomes globally); study women (understand hormonal health and women’s biology); care for women (implement clinical practice guidelines for women-specific conditions and account for sex-specific differences within CPGs); include all women (develop accessible solutions to enable early intervention and treatment for women around the world); and invest in women (boost comprehensive financing for women’s health research and interventions). This blueprint offers a path towards healthier lives for women and stronger, more inclusive economies.