Closing women’s health gap could boost global economy by $1tn a year, leaders say

Healthcare and investment leaders have called for greater spending on women’s health, warning of the enormous economic cost of inadequate care. Europe has already committed billions to research, but experts say more investment and better healthcare services are needed worldwide

Improving women’s healthcare could add at least $1 trillion a year to the global economy by 2040, according to research highlighted at a major international healthcare summit in New York.

Healthcare executives, investors, philanthropists and government representatives gathered during United Nations General Assembly week to discuss how tackling longstanding gaps in women’s healthcare could improve millions of lives while delivering substantial economic benefits.

The discussions centred on research by the World Economic Forum and McKinsey Health Institute, which estimates that addressing inequalities in women’s health could generate at least $1 trillion in additional economic activity annually by 2040.

The research found that women spend around 25 per cent more of their lives in poor health than men, with consequences for their employment, earnings and wider economic participation.

Europe has already committed billions to tackling the problem, with the EU investing more than €2 billion in over 1,000 women’s health research projects through its Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe programmes.

Those projects cover everything from cancer detection and cardiovascular disease to reproductive health, personalised medicine and clinical studies examining differences between men and women.

But healthcare leaders meeting in New York this week called for greater investment and new approaches to treatment to improve women’s healthcare worldwide.

The New York roundtable, organised by Middle Eastern healthcare provider Burjeel Holdings, brought together 23 leaders to examine how investment, technology and new approaches to treatment could help close the global health gap.

Princess Reema Bandar Al-Saud, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S, opened the discussion with a virtual address calling for a more comprehensive approach to women’s healthcare.

She said: “It begins with creating an environment where women feel comfortable speaking about their health and asking for the care they need.

“But today, that conversation has to go much further. We have to invest in women everywhere. Women’s physical and mental health and overall well-being are interconnected, and our approach to care has to be, too.

“No nation can ask half of its people to contribute to its future and then leave their healthcare to chance.”

Participants identified sustained investment in women’s healthcare systems, wider use of technology and new approaches to treatment with demonstrable results as the three most pressing priorities.

Dr Shamsheer Vayalil, chairman and chief executive of Burjeel Holdings, said women’s healthcare needed to address medical conditions throughout their lives rather than concentrating on individual episodes of treatment.

He said: “Women’s health has been under-researched, underfunded, and too often treated as episodic rather than lifelong.

“Prevention is key, alongside diagnostics, cardiovascular health, cancer, reproductive health, menopause and midlife care, and so much more. Any model implemented needs to be evidence-based, culturally relevant, with trusted, measurable success. Only then will progress be seen.”

Burjeel highlighted its own experience in the UAE, reporting a decline in cervical cancer cases at its Burjeel Cancer Institute over the past two years.

The group also outlined collaborative initiatives being developed in Saudi Arabia, including an integrated women’s healthcare model which it says could eventually be adapted for other countries, particularly in Africa and the wider developing world.

READ MORE: Europe’s healthcare sector lags on AI uptake – but leads once it starts using it. Fewer healthcare organisations use AI than the European average, but those that do are more likely to use several tools, have formal safeguards and report stronger returns than businesses in other industries.

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_{Main image: Healthcare, investment, philanthropy and government leaders gathered in New York to discuss how closing the global women’s health gap could deliver up to $1 trillion in annual economic benefits by 2040. Credit: Burjeel Holdings}