Researchers warn that women’s health doesn’t start and end with sexual and reproductive medicine.
Australian women overwhelmingly identify violence as the health issue they are most concerned about, but don’t necessarily see that reflected in funding or public health campaigns.
Now, leading women’s health researchers are calling for a greater focus on health equity, rather than equality.
“This is not to downplay reproductive health issues … all the health issues that women identified, they said were important,” Monash University women’s health researcher and developmental psychologist Professor Helen Skouteris told The Medical Republic.
“But what we found in [a recent survey of more than 2200 Australian women and girls] was that violence against women was identified as the top health concern.
“And that’s something that I think we need to shout from the rooftops, because women are experiencing very specific reproductive or sex specific conditions like endometriosis and menopause, and they’re very important.
“But we felt that the fact that there are health conditions beyond those reproductive health issues is something that we cannot ignore.”
The survey results, which were published in BMC Women’s Health, included a finding that women felt that non-reproductive health issues were largely ignored.
“I think if you talk to most women about women’s health, they’ll go, ‘oh yeah, it’s menopause and it’s endometriosis and it’s having babies and it’s breast cancer’ … and they might rattle off a couple of other different things, but actually it’s women have more back pain,” one respondent said.
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“70% of migraine sufferers are women, about 80% of fibromyalgia sufferers are women.
“Autoimmune diseases affect more women. So I think we’ve actually got to really get past this very narrow understanding of women’s health as sexual and reproductive health.”
Professor Skouteris called for GPs, as the proverbial “front door” of Australia’s health system, to be better supported and resourced to pick up the “silent issues” that affect their female patients.
“Women are still telling us that they are going into the health system and they are feeling like their voice isn’t heard, their symptoms are not understood and the system does not support them,” she said.
Ultimately, she said, giving men and women the same access to treatments and systems does not represent true health equity.
“The system, as we’ve just identified, has been designed largely around male bodies and their experiences,” Professor Skouteris said.
“And that’s not even to criticise [the system, which was built] … many years ago. Let’s not even criticise that. Let’s just say that was the reality back then.
“But it’s 2026, and at what point do we say that we’ve really got to make changes to a system that is not necessarily leading to equitable outcomes for women.”
