FRESH TAKES ON BIG IDEAS

Being in good health means being unconstrained by physical, social, mental, or spiritual challenges that get in the way of being at your very best. Recent research from the McKinsey Health Institute indicates that men spend more time in good health than women do. This is what’s called the women’s health gap.

What’s behind this disparity? One reason is that women often aren’t treated in a way that reflects female biology. In the past, women’s health was equated with maternal and child health or, more broadly, sexual and reproductive health. That was based on the mistaken assumption that women were just smaller men, differentiated only by their reproductive organs.

It is now understood that female biology is different from male biology—beyond the reproductive system. This realization has led to more awareness of how some diseases manifest differently in women than in men and how addressing those differences can result in better health and economic outcomes.

Heart attacks, for example, tend to manifest in men as pressure on the left side of the chest and a weak or numb left arm. In women, they could also present as nausea, dizziness, or a feeling that something is off but you can’t quite pinpoint what. When a woman shows up to the ER with these symptoms, the doctor there may not have been trained to recognize that heart attacks may manifest differently in women. As a result, women are often sent home with medicine for their nausea, instead of being treated for a heart attack.

Data on why conditions manifest differently in men and women is lacking, which contributes to the health gap in multiple ways. For one, less data leads to less investment. When you’re spending upward of $1 billion to develop a drug, you want the best understanding of everything, including biological mechanisms, physiology, and genetics. The uterus is one of the least understood organs in the human body, even though almost half of the world’s population has one. A more limited understanding of how this organ works means it is riskier to develop drugs for conditions that affect it. So it’s not too surprising that uterine cancer is one of the top conditions contributing to the women’s health gap in the United States.

“Our research shows that closing the women’s health gap could boost the global economy by $1 trillion annually by 2040.”

Many often assume that the women’s health gap primarily manifests later in life and is connected to women’s living longer on average. But we’ve found that the majority of the gap shows up during women’s prime working years. Not addressing it has huge economic implications, because if women were healthier, they could be more productive.

Our research shows that closing the women’s health gap could boost the global economy by $1 trillion annually by 2040. For the average woman, this would mean seven more days of living in good health each year and more time to be in the workforce. Closing the gap would also contribute to a stronger society, because healthier people are able to spend more time engaging with the world around them.

Employers in all industries should embrace policies that advance health equity. Support in the workplace for women experiencing menopause, for instance—a condition that almost every woman will go through but one that is poorly understood and whose diagnosis is often delayed—can go a long way toward retaining those who may otherwise exit the workforce prematurely.

The medical-research and academic communities also have a significant role to play. More investment is needed to collect data that enables us to understand sex-based differences and find solutions. Medical schools should evolve away from the prevalent model today, whereby women’s health is only covered as part of the OB-GYN rotation, so that medical professionals can understand and provide sex-appropriate care.

A couple of things inspire optimism. I am gratified to see more headlines about conditions that affect women differently or disproportionately. Women don’t have to lower their voices anymore to talk about menstrual health and menopause. More private-equity-backed companies are developing products focused on women’s health. The number of entrepreneurs focused on women’s health continues to rise. Regulators are increasingly demanding a better understanding of sex-based differences, and more providers are being trained on how to address sex-based differences. The world has made a lot of progress on this topic, but it still has a long way to go.

ABOUT THIS AUTHOR

Lucy Pérez is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Boston office and an affiliated leader of the McKinsey Health Institute.