Women's health: Leading causes of death and women-centered care

The World Bank estimates that women make half of the world’s population. While this number presents opportunities to forward gender equality initiatives, the World Economic Forum pointed out that these women are likely to be afflicted with various diseases in between 30 and 70 years of age. There’s also chance that they are caught in the crossfire of diseases during the height of their productivity. Much can be done to address women’s health problems, and the first step is awareness. Here are the top three causes of death among women worldwide:

Ischemic heart disease

Ischemic heart disease (IHD) is the leading cost of morbidity and mortality among women. Scholars from the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Anges, California and the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia that IHD is prevalent among women due to risk factors such as adverse pregnancy outcomes, autoimmune disorders, sleep apnea, and radiation-induced heart disease. They also didn’t rule out psychosocial factors which include stress, depression, and anxiety as well as problems due to the women’s socioeconomic status, work conditions, and marital relationship.

Stroke

While determinants of stroke are generally common across sexes, scholars from the University of Toronto found that preeclampsia, pregnancy, and use of exogenous hormones are among the factors that increase stroke among women. Despite this, stroke occurrence among women is primarily due to hypertension, abdominal obesity, and adverse lipid profile. Lifestyle also plays a critical role particularly nicotine and alcohol consumption, diet, and exercise among others. Since women live longer than men, the National Stroke Association reported that women have stroke alone and seek treatment alone. They also have a harder time recovering from the disease.

Lower respiratory tract infections

Disease classified under lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI) are communicable diseases, unlike IHD and stroke. This could be attributed to the fact that women and children suffer more from air pollution as reported by scholars from the UK, US, India, China, Mexico, and Malawi. Moreover, the physiological changes among pregnant women also cause an increase in the severity of respiratory tract infections like influenza as shown in the results of the study conducted by biomedical researchers from the Center for Disease Control and the University of California at San Francisco.

The World Economic Forum encourages nations to deal with women’s health problems through a women-centered care approach. This can be done with a focus on women’s health needs in addition to their illness and cure. Comprehensive health care must also be provided all throughout, and women must play a key role in managing their health. Research must also be continued to determine the factors that contribute to women’s illnesses and develop better prevention strategies and treatments.