Disparities in the health care system of the United States have been a major issue for years. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describes health disparities as “preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence or opportunities to achieve optimal health that are experienced by socially disadvantaged populations.” Some factors that have an effect on the disparity include economic status, race and gender. For the purpose of this article, the group that will be focused on is women. There are many reasons why women are not given proper treatment for their health, such as the gender-biased history of trials, a lack of understanding of the female body and a shortage of funding for women’s clinical studies. This disparity gap is even worse for women of color. Attention needs to be brought to this issue, so that it can be addressed and hopefully one day resolved.

There is a long history of neglect when it comes to medical trials for women. According to the World Economic Forum, “historically, the medical system’s approach has been more of a patriarchal investigation into the human body, with data and results stemming from male-only testing and trials.” This gender bias resulted in a lack of understanding of the female body. While efforts to improve this misunderstanding have been somewhat successful, such as the inclusion of women in clinical studies becoming mandatory in the United States in 1993, this fault continues to affect women today. For example, while 80 percent of pain research is done on men, 70 percent of people with chronic pain conditions are women. There have also been studies that show that resources for researching diseases are disproportionately put toward those that mainly affect men. Policies need to be changed in order to ensure that women are fairly included in all clinical studies.

Another area that needs more focus is research on areas that only affect women. This includes “maternal and menstrual health, as well as … conditions that present differently in women than men.” This research would help tremendously with treating these areas of health with preventable issues. For example, the CDC reports that “four out of five pregnancy-related deaths in the [United States] are preventable and Black women are nearly three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women.” Another area that has a huge impact on women but is not well researched is autoimmune disorders, which according to Health.com “[occur] when the immune system attacks itself.” Not only are 78 percent of those affected by autoimmune disorders women, but “autoimmune diseases are now the fifth-leading cause of death in women younger than 65.” Specifically, the seven most commonly misdiagnosed women’s illnesses are polycystic ovary syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, lupus, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and irritable bowel syndrome. The cause of autoimmune disorders is still unknown, but some researchers believe that it may have to do with sex hormones, double X chromosomes and evolution. An increase in funding and more gender-balanced research teams would be a good start for improving these issues by giving researchers the resources they need.

Another huge issue relates to the direct care of women in doctors’ offices. Many women leave these offices feeling as though they were not listened to, having their symptoms and worries disregarded and ignored. According to Harriet Brown from Health.com, experts say that “they are told that their complaints are all in their heads or that everything will be fine if they would just stop worrying.” In actuality, these are women who often end up having an autoimmune disorder. According to Virginia Ladd, founder and executive director of the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association, “more than 40 percent of women eventually diagnosed with a serious autoimmune disease have basically been told by a doctor that they’re just too concerned with their health or they’re a hypochondriac.” This was also an issue in other areas of health, not just autoimmune disorders. One study researched a total of 981 emergency room visits and determined that when it came to being treated with powerful opioid painkillers for acute abdominal pain, women were 25 percent less likely than men to be given them. Another study found that when middle-aged women described symptoms of heart diseases, they were twice as likely to be wrongfully diagnosed with a mental illness than men. Women need to be taken more seriously and actually listened to when speaking. No one knows better about their own body than the person themselves, and women should be given the same grace that men are given in a doctor’s office.

The health industry needs to be held accountable in order to get better care for women across the United States. This accountability includes better funding for researching women’s health, adding preventions for gender bias and a shift in how women are treated in doctors’ offices. Hopefully, these improvements, if actually applied, would shrink the disparity and eventually close it completely.

Lily Tener is a sophomore majoring in English.