Reflections from Women Deliver: championing gendered approaches to addressing non-communicable diseases

At Women Deliver 2023, The George Institute for Global Health and World Health Organization launched a global call-to-action to share evidence, best practice and learning around the gendered barriers to access for non-communicable disease (NCD) prevention, early diagnosis, treatment, and care.

In Korea, single mother Mrs. Kim works as a farm labourer and has a treatable heart condition. Her main goal is to ensure her son’s education and future success, but the financial burden of paying for his school tuition every Spring adds stress to her life. This stress often causes her to forget to take her necessary medication, negatively impacting her health. Mrs. Kim believes that poverty is the underlying cause of her health condition, preventing her from accessing the essential treatment she needs.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Kim’s story is not unique, as many women and girls around the world face similar challenges in preventing, diagnosing, treating, and caring for NCDs. NCDs, including cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, and mental health conditions are the cause of ⅔ of deaths in women. Access to prevention and care is particularly challenging in low-resource settings, where women’s health often takes a back seat within families due to financial constraints and caregiving responsibilities, while travel challenges can further hinder access to essential healthcare.

In response to these gender disparities in NCDs a global call-to-action for evidence, best practice and learning was launched at Women Deliver 2023, in Kigali, Rwanda. Grassroots innovators, youth leaders, researchers, and high-level stakeholders gathered to raise awareness of the gendered impacts of NCDs, and to discuss solutions that can empower women, reduce discrimination, and realise global commitments to reduce deaths from NCDs. At the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in March, Liberia’s First Lady Her Excellency Madam Clar -Weah had called for a concrete action plan incorporating digital health programs, research, innovation, and data-driven solutions, with a focus on grassroots innovations that address specific needs of women and girls and promote sustainability. This call-to-action reiterated this task.

More about the global call to action

News

Feminist, rights-based solutions to address NCDs: Scaling-up grassroots innovations to create equitable solutions for NCD prevention and control.

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