Posted On: March 7, 2025
Today it may appear that women’s health and wellness has taken center stage — from medical care to media coverage. However, women’s healthcare needs haven’t always been in the spotlight. In fact, it’s only been in the past 100 years that doctors and researchers have recognized the need to focus on the specific health requirements of approximately half the population. Just in some of our own lifetimes, we’ve witnessed the rise of awareness in women’s health.
The women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s was a fight not just for equal rights, equal pay, and access to higher education, but also better healthcare. In the 1980s and 1990s, researchers began to realize that there were major gaps in understanding how disease and illness affect women and how hormonal differences may affect a woman’s disease progression and response to drug treatment. It wasn’t until the mid-1980s that the medical community began to realize how women experience heart disease differently from men. The women’s movement for better healthcare gained momentum as their voices were heard. In 1990, the NIH established the Office of Research on Women’s Health to support greater research on women’s health trends and concerns. In 1992, the NIH initiated the Women’s Health Initiative — a $625 million, 14-year randomized control trial to study the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and osteoporosis in women. In 1993, the FDA developed a new gender guideline and began allowing women to participate in early-stage clinical trials.
Over the past three decades, we have continued to see advancement in women’s health when it comes to research, funding, and healthcare provisions. However, much more work is needed to tighten the gender gap in healthcare. Women’s health forums are beneficial because they provide a platform for women medical practitioners to share information, answer questions, advocate for change, improve access to healthcare, and help women make informed decisions about their health. They allow women to connect with others, increase their knowledge, and share experiences and resources. They voice concerns that might not be addressed in traditional medical settings.