The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day, Accelerate Action, is a timely reminder that while progress has been made in healthcare, a gender health gap still exists.
Women experience disparities in diagnosis, treatment and outcomes across a range of conditions, from fibromyalgia and mental health to cardiovascular disease and cancer. However, advances in digital healthcare are helping to bridge this gap through earlier detection, personalised care and improved accessibility.
This article will explore the reasons behind these disparities and look at how digital healthcare can help deliver better health outcomes.
Why does the gender health gap exist?
Women’s health has historically been under-researched, underfunded and often overlooked in medical studies. For years, clinical trials have been conducted primarily on men, leading to treatments that don’t fully account for women’s biological and hormonal differences.
Some heart disease symptoms, for example, present differently in women and are often misdiagnosed. Even following heart attacks, women are 50% more likely to be given an incorrect diagnosis.
There is also the issue of pain bias. Some studies show that women’s pain can be taken less seriously, leading to under-prescription of pain relief or the misdiagnosis of chronic pain conditions.
The good news is that digital health innovations are providing new ways to monitor, detect and treat conditions that disproportionately affect women.
Fibromyalgia: tackling chronic pain with femtech
Fibromyalgia is a complex condition that causes widespread pain, fatigue and cognitive difficulties. According to the NHS, it affects around seven times more women than men. Fibromyalgia has long been misunderstood and under-researched, with its often vague yet debilitating symptoms historically being downplayed.
However, a 2017 study provided compelling evidence that the condition has a neurological basis. Using machine learning, researchers analysed brain scans and identified fibromyalgia patients from healthy individuals with 93% accuracy.
Across the healthcare sector, femtech (technology designed for women’s health) is stepping up to help patients better manage their condition through digital pain-tracking apps and tailored treatment plans. For example, wearable devices such as NeuroMetrix’s Quell use transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) for non-invasive pain relief, while digital programmes like Swing Therapeutics offer interactive, self-guided therapy. Symptom-tracking apps including Manage My Pain and PainScale can also help women identify triggers and patterns.
Mental health: AI-powered early detection
Even though there has been progress in reducing the stigma around mental health, there is still more to be done. According to the Mental Health Foundation, around one in five women has a common mental health problem, like depression or anxiety.
AI-driven mental health tools are making it easier to catch problems early. For example, Blua, digital health by Bupa, includes a feature called Take Care of Your Mind, which monitors subtle changes in sleep patterns and behaviour alongside a daily questionnaire, to better understand a customer's mental health and flag signs of distress.
AI can even start to recognise mental health challenges by listening to a person’s voice. Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory have developed a model that analyses tone, pitch and speech patterns to spot signs of depression – with a 77% success rate.
Cardiovascular disease: changing perceptions on heart health
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is responsible for one third of deaths in women – more than all cancers combined. Women face a 20% increased risk of developing heart failure or dying within five years after their first severe heart attack compared to men.
CVD is the leading cause of death in women worldwide, yet women are less likely to receive timely diagnoses or the most suitable treatments. This is partly due to the widespread misconception that cardiovascular disease affects men more.
Heart disease symptoms also differ in women, which can mean they are more frequently misdiagnosed, or their symptoms dismissed as anxiety-related. Women are often under-represented in clinical trials, contributing to the lack of awareness of gender-specific symptoms of CVD.
Wearable devices are helping to detect cardiovascular issues early. For example, the Apple Watch offers continuous heart rhythm monitoring and can perform on-demand electrocardiograms (ECGs), while the Oura Ring also monitors heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV), providing insights into women’s overall heart health.
AI-powered tools developed by Mayo Clinic are also helping to spot cardiovascular diseases in women. For example, an AI-enabled digital stethoscope has been shown to identify twice as many cases of pregnancy-related heart failure compared to standard care.
Cancer screening: improving access and accuracy
By 2040, new breast cancer cases are expected to exceed 3 million annually, with 1 million deaths each year. Early detection of cancer is critical to treatment, yet access to screening for women remains inconsistent globally.
Digital solutions are rising up to tackle the disparities and provide better access to screenings. AI-assisted mammography, for example, can detect abnormalities with greater accuracy and improve early diagnosis. Deep-learning models are also being used to predict individual risk levels, enabling personalised screening strategies.
Virtual consultations and mobile screening units are bringing cancer screening services to underserved areas. In the US the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program sends mobile mammography vans to isolated and underserved populations, including Navajo reservations.
Genomics is also playing a key role. Genetic insights can help identify women at higher risk for conditions like breast cancer, enabling earlier interventions. Bupa has recently launched My Genomic Health in the UK and Spain, a two-year pilot that will analyse the DNA of 14,000 customers and identify their risk of disease across more than 60 actionable conditions, including 10 cancers.
The future of digital healthcare for women
By integrating innovations like AI, telehealth and wearable technologies into mainstream healthcare, we can bridge the gender health gap faster. However, supporting the uptake of digital solutions is also crucial to catching health issues earlier and moving towards preventative care.
While technology can’t solve this problem alone, as a sector we can collectively advocate for and invest in digital healthcare as a powerful tool in addressing the major health issues facing women around the world.
