Closing the Health Gap: Women’s Health

It is a rather disheartening reading: AXA's latest Mind Health Report 2024 brought to light that the health gap for women keeps widening.

By now we all are aware that women have unique health concerns due to distinct biologically differences. Higher body fat, hormonal variations, smaller cardiovascular and pulmonary systems, and less dense bones. Science tells us, women need their own set health treatment and wellbeing practices.

1. The Data: A gender gap keeps widening

According to AXA's global Mind Health Report 2024, there has been an increase in the number of women experiencing severe stress, anxiety, and depression. The report also reaffirms that women commonly face remarkable challenges related to body image, gender discrimination, and self-acceptance. Last but not least, the data tells us that many women keep having limited time for relaxation, healthy eating, exercise, and social interaction due to household responsibilities.

• In 2024, around 50% of German women do not rate their mental health as good - 10% more than men.
• Every 3rd woman describes herself as mentally ill. This gloomy statement is based on questions about current depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder or other mental illnesses.
• Young women are impacted in particular. 40% of 18 to 24 aged females mentioned to have a concrete mental wellbeing challenge based on latest data.

2. The "Big 5": A call for gender-specific, personalised care

Implementing gender-specific approaches to care means, concretely, to respond better to womens' needs in what I ended up calling the "Big 5" for women: stress reduction, sleep optimization, tailored supplementation, hormone management and "snaxercise".

These are the daily elements of prevention. And in case you wonder, "snaxercise" operationalizes recent research advocating smalls amounts of exercise (every 90 minutes) during regular work hours. Admittedly I am not yet there myself, yet it is anticipated to have a greater positive impact on health compared to sporadic, dedicated exercise sessions.

These practices are vital for narrowing the health disparity and enhancing women's holistic well-being. To mitigate health risks for women, a comprehensive adoption of the "Big 5" - in the curriculum of national education systems as well as regular gynecological examinatios - is much needed.

3. The Research: A remarkable funding gap

What is really critical for women's health prevention is understanding the science. We are still in the early stages of understanding the epigenomic and microbiomic expressions of the female body. Women immune responses are different and this is crucial for care and prevention. In simple terms, women generally have more robust immunity, resulting in lower cancer rates but higher incidences of inflammation and autoimmune diseases.

To give you 3 concrete examples:

• Historically, women have been underrepresented in clinical trials. This has led to a gap in understanding gender-specific responses to treatments which is evidenced by drug adverse effects, where 80% of withdrawn drugs exhibited greater harm in women.
• More recent research shows that hormones play a more pivotal role in our well-being than we previously thought. They impact brain, bone, heart, and overall health. Understanding the cyclical nature of hormones and mimicking natural hormonal cycles can lead to more effective treatments and balanced health for women.
• The choice and dosage of supplements vary between men and women, Specific over-the-counter supplements can optimize women's health, yet women typically require lower doses based on their metabolisms.

The honorable Nature magazine, a global authority in science, reinstated the need only few months ago: Women’s health research lacks funding. Conditions that affect women more than men get less funding in medical research. The redirection and prioritisation of investments could reap big rewards.

To mark the rather tragic funding gap, Nature did a excellent job and visualized the gap in two remarkable graphs. These charts show how (nature.com):

Well done, in my view. On AXA 's side we have been investing consistently in women's health over the past years. AXA's Research Fund announced only 2 weeks ago, that AXA granted 1m EUR in research for a new chair in Spain around cardiovascular risks in women.

Mirjam Bamberger is member of the Management Committee of AXA's European Markets & Health. Prior to this she has been she has been CEO of AXA Luxembourg and CEO of AXA Wealth Europe and served in various roles as a board member of AXA Switzerland. Mirjam spent over 20 years living and working in the US and UK, China, Latin America and Europe, holds an honors degree of the executive MBA of IMD Lausanne and a master’s degree of University of Cologne. She is a certified director of the Swiss Board School.