Women’s health has long been marginalized in healthcare, with many experiencing frustrations as their symptoms are minimized, misattributed, or dismissed altogether. Bias in the healthcare system, both explicit and implicit (unconscious), has created a persistent gap in the quality of care provided to women. Although strides have been made in addressing these issues, challenges remain, deeply embedded in the cultural, educational, and clinical practices of healthcare professionals.
Neglect of Women in Primary Care
For decades, women’s accounts of their pain and symptoms have often been dismissed by healthcare providers. Studies show that women’s pain is frequently attributed to emotional or psychological causes, such as stress, anxiety, or hormonal fluctuations, and exaggerated, rather than being taken seriously as physical ailments. The result is delayed diagnoses and improper treatments.
Even in emergency care, where timely intervention is necessary, research reveals that women wait longer than men to receive pain medication. Men receive medication after an average of 49 minutes, while women wait an additional 16 minutes.
And this trend is not limited to acute conditions. Chronic pain conditions, including fibromyalgia and endometriosis, which primarily affect women, are often under-researched and under-treated. Historically, women have been underrepresented from medical research trials, with the National Institutes of Health only mandating the inclusion of women in 1990.
Consequently, much of modern medical knowledge is based on studies conducted on male bodies, leading to treatments that are less effective or entirely inappropriate for women.
Bias in Providing Care and Limited Options
The persistence of gender bias in healthcare is fueled by stereotypes and cultural beliefs about women’s health. Healthcare professionals exhibit the same implicit bias as the general population, and some have been shown to believe that women’s health complaints are linked to their hormones or mental health. This foundational bias influences clinical decisions, with healthcare providers often giving more weight to men’s symptoms or prescribing sedatives to women in place of proper pain management.
The assumption that women are exaggerating or over-reporting their pain continues to undermine their care, even in life-changing situations like heart attacks, while men are twice as likely to receive pain medication after undergoing coronary bypass surgery than women.
Further compounding the issue is a gap in the range of treatments available for women. Healthcare systems frequently rely on generalized treatments, failing to provide tailored options for conditions specific to women, such as menopause or polycystic ovarian syndrome.
Compounded by a lack of gender-specific training in medical education, this leaves many providers unprepared to address the unique health concerns of their female patients. For women, this translates into a lack of access to the care they need, further widening the gap in health outcomes.
Clinician Training and the Role of Education
For too long, healthcare providers have been trained using models based primarily on men’s health, with little attention paid to how symptoms of various conditions manifest differently in women. This gender bias in training leads to misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis for conditions such as endometriosis, migraines, and autoimmune diseases, which are more common in women. Furthermore, many conditions that affect both genders, such as depression or heart disease, are treated differently based on inaccurate assumptions about symptom presentation in women versus men.
Clinicians must be equipped with gender-specific knowledge to provide equitable care. Educating healthcare providers about the differences in symptoms and treatment needs is essential for improving outcomes, particularly for women living with chronic conditions. Gender-specific training can also help clinicians recognize and address their unconscious biases, reducing the likelihood of women’s symptoms being dismissed or minimized.
The Impact of Personal and Cultural Biases
Bias in healthcare is not limited to gender; it also intersects with race, socioeconomic status, and cultural background. Women of Color, particularly Black women, face additional barriers to receiving quality care.
Long-standing racial biases, such as healthcare providers underestimating minority groups levels of pain, contribute to a lower standard of care for these women. Black women are often prescribed fewer pain medications, offered fewer preventive screenings, and face greater challenges in accessing prenatal and reproductive healthcare. These disparities, rooted in structural and systemic racism, persist even when healthcare providers have good intentions.
The consequences of gender and racial bias in healthcare can be severe. Women who feel dismissed or patronized by their doctors may lose trust in the healthcare system, leading them to delay seeking care or avoid medical appointments altogether. This can result in missed diagnoses of serious conditions, including cancer or heart disease. The effects of such neglect can be life-threatening, as untreated conditions worsen over time, making treatment more difficult and less effective.
How Harmonia is Leading Change
Harmonia is actively working on challenging gender and racial biases in healthcare by providing comprehensive, patient-centered care that prioritizes women’s voices. The organization’s approach focuses on educating healthcare providers to recognize the complexities of women’s health issues and to understand the intersectionality of gender and race in patient care.
Harmonia emphasizes early interventions and holistic care models that address not only physical symptoms but also the emotional and psychological needs of women. Through targeted education and a commitment to gender equity, Harmonia is helping to close the gap in healthcare quality for women.
What Women Really Want
The long-standing neglect of women’s symptoms, coupled with cultural and racial biases, has contributed to a system that often fails to provide equitable care. Harmonia’s efforts to educate providers and advocate for patient-centered approaches offer a path forward, ensuring that women receive the care and attention they deserve. But until women get the same degree of medical attention as men, they can expect to continue being treated as second-class and less-than-equal.