Zainab Shinkafi-Bagudu, UICC President-Elect of 2024-2026, Founder and CEO of the Medicaid Cancer Foundation, shared an article on LinkedIn:
Strengthening Women’s Health: Evidence, Access, and Investment
“Women’s health shows persistent gaps across healthcare systems, research, policy, and financing. These gaps influence the quality of available evidence, the timeliness of diagnosis, and the effectiveness of care delivery, with broader implications for system performance and economic outcomes.
As we mark the end of women’s month, the fact is that women continue to be diagnosed later than men across more than 700 diseases, affecting treatment pathways and outcomes. In parallel, only a small proportion of clinical trials report sex-disaggregated data, limiting the strength and applicability of clinical evidence.
In my work as a Champion of the Global Alliance for Women’s Health, a Council Member of the African Breast Cancer Council, and President-Elect of the Union for International Cancer Control, these gaps remain a consistent focus in our efforts to strengthen inclusive solutions.
Investment patterns do not reflect the scale of need, with women’s health receiving a limited share of both public and private healthcare funding. There is also an imbalance in research distribution, with a substantial proportion of the disease burden in low- and middle-income countries, and fewer clinical trials are conducted in these settings.
Reducing these gaps has clear economic implications. Projections show that correcting the imbalance will contribute positively to global GDP by 2040.
Aligning our efforts with the actual burden of disease is necessary to improve system performance and ensure that healthcare delivery is based on complete and representative evidence.”
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