A conversation on PCOS here, a discussion around menopause there, perhaps a campaign around breast cancer in October. But when you step back and look at the numbers as a whole, a far more urgent picture begins to emerge. This is not simply about isolated health conditions.
It is about a systemic gap in research, diagnosis, treatment and funding that continues to affect women across every stage of life. The numbers do not just inform us they expose how deeply women’s health continues to be overlooked.
According to recent global data, women spend 25 per cent more of their lives in poor health or with disabilities than men.
Let that sink in.
Women may live longer on average, but more of those years are spent navigating illness, pain, fatigue, chronic conditions and delayed care.
75 million years of life lost
When this gap is viewed on a global scale, the impact becomes even more staggering. Every year, it adds up to 75 million years of healthy life lost worldwide.
These are not abstract figures. They represent years lived with untreated symptoms, missed diagnoses, unmanaged chronic illnesses and conditions that have historically been dismissed as “normal” for women.
From debilitating period pain and endometriosis to cardiovascular disease, autoimmune conditions and menopause-related complications, women are often left waiting longer for answers and support.
The economic cost of ignoring women’s health
Poor health is never only personal. It is social, structural and deeply economic. Experts estimate that closing the women’s health gap could add at least $1 trillion to the global economy every year by 2040. This is because women’s health directly affects workforce participation, productivity, caregiving capacity and long-term economic resilience. When women are healthier, families function better, workplaces are stronger and communities thrive.
Yet despite this, women’s health still receives a disproportionately small share of investment.
Only 6 per cent gets invested
One of the most startling numbers is this: only 6 per cent of private healthcare capital is spent on conditions affecting women.
Even within that already small figure, most of the funding is concentrated around just a few areas such as reproductive health, maternal health and women’s cancers. This leaves several conditions that affect millions of women severely underfunded.
The conditions still being sidelined
Conditions such as PCOS, endometriosis and menopause receive less than 2 per cent of private healthcare funding. And yet these are among the most life-altering health concerns women face. Endometriosis, for instance, affects daily quality of life, fertility, mental health and work productivity, while menopause can impact cardiovascular health, bone density, sleep, cognition and emotional wellbeing.
Still, these conditions continue to sit at the margins of mainstream medical research.
The data gap is still real
Perhaps one of the most revealing statistics is that only around 5 per cent of clinical trials report sex-specific data. This means women are still, in many ways, being diagnosed and treated using medical evidence largely built around male bodies. Symptoms often present differently in women.
Heart attack signs, medication side effects, hormonal responses and disease progression may not mirror male biology. Yet much of medicine has historically used men as the default baseline. This is where the health gap becomes a data gap.
If women are not adequately represented in research, their bodies remain medically under-understood.
The cost of delayed diagnosis
The consequences of this are visible in everyday healthcare experiences. Women are diagnosed later than men for more than 700 diseases by an average of four years. That delay can mean years of pain, uncertainty and worsening health outcomes.
Take endometriosis, many women wait more than seven years for a diagnosis.
Similarly, only 2 in 10 women receive the correct menopause diagnosis the first time they seek help.
For countless women, symptoms are minimised, misattributed to stress or dismissed altogether.