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The Gender Health Gap

Women live longer than men — but spend more of their lives in poor health. Discover why the healthcare system has been leaving women behind for decades, and what we can do about it.

✨ Evidence-based · Academic Sources · 2023–2025

💡 The Big Picture

Why Does the Gender Health Gap Exist?

For centuries, medical research treated men as the default human body. Women were systematically excluded from clinical trials, misdiagnosed, and under-treated. The result? A global health crisis hiding in plain sight.

25%
more of their lives women spend in poor health compared to men
WEF & McKinsey Health Institute, 2024
1%
of global healthcare R&D is dedicated to female-specific conditions
WEF, Closing the Women's Health Gap, 2024
4 yrs
later, on average, women are diagnosed with hundreds of health conditions
Danish study of 7M people, 2019
$1T
economic opportunity if the women's health gap is closed by 2040
McKinsey Health Institute, 2024

Every woman should be able to receive quality care when and where she needs it. We will only be able to achieve this once we examine the state of the women's health gap, and then identify the biggest disparities to inform strategies and policies towards better women's health outcomes.

— Amira Ghouaibi, Project Lead, Women's Health Initiative · World Economic Forum

🔬 The Research Gap

When Science Ignores Half the Population

Medical research has historically used male bodies — including male animals — as the default research subject, then applied the findings to women without sufficient evidence.

Medical research laboratory

The Male Default in Medicine 🧪

Decades of clinical research was built almost entirely on male specimens — both human and animal. The premise was that there are "few significant differences" between male and female biology, an assumption we now know to be dangerously wrong. This means that drug dosages, diagnostic criteria, and treatment plans were calibrated for male bodies and then applied to women without modification.


According to the European Parliament's Research Service (2025), this lack of inclusion has resulted in critical gaps in our understanding of how treatments impact women, increasing the risk of adverse drug effects and limiting treatment effectiveness. The gender health data gap impacts cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's, and more.

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Data Gap

Invisible in the Data

For every one woman diagnosed with a women's health condition, roughly four go undiagnosed. In comparison, the gap for men is only 1.5x. In 2020, less than 10% of countries reported data on female access to contraception.

McKinsey, Closing the Gender Data Gap in Healthcare, 2023

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Research

Sex as a Biological Variable

Sex and gender interact with health in complex ways. Shansky & Murphy (2021) argue in Nature Neuroscience that considering sex as a biological variable requires a "global shift in science culture" — it cannot be an afterthought.

Shansky & Murphy, Nature Neuroscience, 2021

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Healthcare Access

Dismissed & Distrusted

In the EU, 22% of women believe men are treated better by medical staff (vs 16% of men). In a third of OECD countries, the gender gap in trust in the healthcare system exceeds 10 percentage points.

OECD, Gender Equality in a Changing World, 2025 · Eurobarometer, 2024

🩻 Underdiagnosed Conditions

Conditions Where Women are Left Behind

These are five key areas where the gender health gap shows up most clearly — where women are misdiagnosed, dismissed, or diagnosed years too late.

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Heart Disease

Women present atypical heart attack symptoms yet are less likely to receive timely care. Women with myocardial infarction receive fewer quality interventions than men.

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ADHD

Less than 1% of US women have an ADHD diagnosis, but rates nearly doubled between 2020–2022 as awareness grows. Women "mask" symptoms longer before receiving help.

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Chronic Pain

Women's pain is more likely to be dismissed as emotional or psychosomatic. Conditions like endometriosis take an average of 7–10 years to diagnose.

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Alzheimer's

Women account for nearly two-thirds of Alzheimer's cases, yet sex-specific research remains underfunded. The Women's Brain Project is working to change this.

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Depression

Women are more likely to experience depressive disorders and headache disorders. Low-income women bear a disproportionately high burden, with limited access to care.

Women in healthcare

📅 Timeline

A Brief History of Women in Medical Research

Understanding how we got here helps us chart a path forward. The exclusion of women from research wasn't accidental — it was policy.

1977 — FDA Excludes Women of Childbearing Age

The US FDA issues guidance recommending that women of "childbearing potential" be excluded from early clinical trials — ostensibly to protect fetuses, but the result is decades of missing data on how drugs affect women.

Historical FDA policy record

1993 — NIH Revitalization Act

US Congress mandates that women and minorities be included in NIH-funded clinical research. A landmark moment — but implementation was slow and inconsistent.

US Congress, NIH Revitalization Act, 1993

2016 — NIH Sex as a Biological Variable Policy

The NIH mandates that grant applicants consider sex as a biological variable in all research. A pivotal policy that acknowledges biology's role in health outcomes.

NIH Office of Research on Women's Health, 2016

2019 — WHO Sex-Disaggregated Data

WHO's Global Health Statistics are disaggregated by sex for the first time. A critical step towards understanding how gender shapes health outcomes globally.

WHO, Closing Data Gaps in Gender, 2019

2023 — PMC Gender Health Data Gap Study

Di Lego & colleagues publish a comprehensive analysis in Cadernos de Saúde Pública documenting the gender health data gap across cancer, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer's — and calling for a global culture shift in science.

Di Lego et al., Cad. Saúde Pública, 2023. DOI: 10.1590/0102-311XEN065423

2024 — WEF Launches $1 Trillion Report

At Davos 2024, the World Economic Forum and McKinsey Health Institute launch Closing the Women's Health Gap, quantifying the economic cost of inaction and setting a roadmap for gender health parity by 2040.

WEF & McKinsey Health Institute, 2024

2025 — European Parliament Report

The EU Parliament's Research Service publishes a comprehensive study on gender inequalities in medical research, drug development, and access to care — recommending systemic reforms across the EU health research ecosystem.

European Parliament, IUST STU(2025)778519

🌱 Moving Forward

What Can Be Done?

The gender health gap is large — but not insurmountable. Researchers, policymakers, healthcare providers, and individuals all have a role to play.

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Inclusive Research Design

All clinical trials should include sufficient female representation and report results disaggregated by sex. Funding agencies should mandate sex-specific analysis at every stage of research.

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Close the Data Gap

Build global databases of sex-disaggregated health data. The McKinsey report calls for a shared definition of women's health that goes beyond reproductive conditions to include all relevant diseases.

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Policy & Legislation

Governments should enact and enforce laws requiring gender-inclusive health research, as the EU is doing through its Gender Equality Strategies and as the NIH did with its 2016 policy.

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Train Healthcare Providers

Medical education must incorporate gender medicine. Clinicians should understand that symptoms, drug responses, and disease progression often differ significantly between sexes.

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Raise Awareness

Artists, educators, journalists, and advocates all play a role in making these complex issues visible — turning data into stories that move people to action. Exhibitions, campaigns, and media all matter.

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Global Collaboration

The WHO, WEF, and EU Parliament all call for concerted multi-stakeholder efforts. Disciplines, funding agencies, and health systems must work together — not in silos.

The Healthy Life Years Gap 💜

In the EU, women live to an average of 84.0 years versus men's 78.7 years — a 5.3-year gap. But when we measure healthy life years, the gap nearly vanishes: 63.3 years for women vs. 62.8 for men. This means most of women's extra years are lived with illness or activity limitations. Men spend 79.8% of their shorter lives in good health; women spend only 75.4% of their longer lives healthy.


Source: European Parliament Research Service, IUST STU(2025)778519 · Eurostat data, 2023

Healthcare and wellness

📚 Academic Sources

References

All data on this page is drawn from peer-reviewed research and reputable institutional reports.