Improving women’s health

Our push for women’s health equity focuses on non-communicable diseases and injury —the leading causes of death and disability for women worldwide.

Improving the health of women worldwide requires an agenda that acknowledges these causes and considers women’s health throughout all stages of life from adolescence to ageing. In 2016 we published an Oxford Martin Policy Paper, Women’s Health: A New Global Agenda . This paper provides a framework for prioritising and designing policy and makes recommendations for next steps to improve our research and increase our knowledge that will improve women’s health and health equity.  

Health systems respond differently to women and men such that both access to care and the quality of care differs. Yet, far too commonly, there is no delineation of gender in health data, and women are underrepresented in many scientific and clinical studies. For example, women and men experience cardiovascular disease in different ways, including symptoms, access to care and even treatment. Moreover, women and men in low-income and high-income countries are also affected differently.  Our Interactive data map  highlights the differences in detail.