Speaking on Bloomberg Television in London on Friday, Melinda French Gates was candid: "We are way behind on women's health across the world." Her fix starts with more research and better data to nudge governments to prioritize the issue and target funds for maximum impact. "Measuring matters," she said. "Let's come back and measure this in four or five years," she added, with the goal of determining if women can more easily locate treatments. She pointed to governments as key research funders, and said health systems should lean into prevention and confront biases that lead to women's symptoms being dismissed.
Fresh polling from Gallup and Pivotal shows that more than four in ten women in the UK say health problems stop them from doing everything they want to do. Another 34% report that health problems have limited their advancement on the job. For those who have gone through menopause or perimenopause, 58% reported the experience had a negative impact on their life or career in one or more ways. The timing matters: perimenopause and menopause often arrive when many women are at their career peak, which can magnify the economic hit. French Gates said women are taking time off and bouncing between multiple doctors to get symptoms addressed, and warned that health problems can become "an off-ramp to their dreams."
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French Gates, who founded Pivotal, said she will increase spending on research and care, and that Pivotal is putting $215 million toward women's health. She added that stigma still looms large, especially around menopause, and called for more prevention and better clinical responses so concerns are not brushed off.
The need is not confined to rich nations. Reflecting on work in Africa, French Gates noted that a key lesson is that when women can "time and space the births of their children" and maintain good health, "they flourish, and everyone around them flourishes." For anyone navigating their own health hurdles or caregiving load, the takeaway is simple: when systems invest early and measure what works, it gets easier to stay in the game.
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