Director of Public Health Report 2024: Women’s Health
My annual report this year focuses on women’s health. The starting point for public health is the population and the decision to highlight a particular group in the population raises questions as to why this group and not another. This is especially the case when the overall measures of population health (life expectancy and healthy life expectancy) suggest that women live longer and healthier lives on average compared to men.
There are at least three reasons why a focus on women’s health is justified in Torbay. The first is that despite the progress made in the legal protections of women from discrimination and the improvement in societal attitudes that have enabled their empowerment, there remain barriers to access for services and opportunities that promote the health and wellbeing of women. Debates about the status of transgender people indicate that there are still sectors of society that have not accepted gender equality and find movement from one gender to another transgressive. Bias and prejudice, whether conscious or unconscious, persist and continue to impact negatively on the physical, mental, social, and economic wellbeing of women. Even where genuine progress is evident it takes times for the negative effects of gender discrimination to be fully overcome.
The second reason for the focus on the health of women follows from the first. The stereotype of the woman’s role being in the home meant that many of the tasks related to the care, nurture and education of children fell to women. While there is general acceptance that both men and women have an equal and shared role for bringing up their children these duties fall disproportionately to women in the home. Professions such as nursing, childcare and primary school education are predominantly female. The influence of women on the health of children in their early years is therefore substantial. The health of women is therefore important for the health of our children and especially for those children with special needs and disabilities.
The third reason is that women often also take on responsibility for the health of others, including men in their lives. Women aged 16 to 60 years are more likely to seek medical attention than similarly aged men (Wang Y, Hunt K Nazareth I, et al. BMJ Open 20131) and have a positive influence on the health seeking behaviours of their male partners. While these relationships are complex, a focus on the health of women is likely to have positive impacts not only on the health and development of children but also on men and others who women may have a caring role with.
While Torbay and the UK are further on the path to gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, this United Nations Sustainable Development Goal is still relevant here and justifies the focus of the annual report on this half of our population.
A note on language within this report
Within this report, we use the terms ‘women’ and ‘women’s health.’ However, it is important to acknowledge that it is not only people who identify as women or girls who access women’s health and reproductive services to maintain their health and wellbeing. The terms ‘woman’ and ‘women’s health’ are used for brevity, on the understanding that trans men and non-binary individuals assigned female at birth also require access to these services. Delivery of care must therefore be appropriate, inclusive, and sensitive to the needs of those individuals whose gender identity does not align with thew sex they were assigned at birth.
