Historically, women’s health issues have been misunderstood and overlooked in the scientific community. In many ways, the digital health industry is also a “man’s world.” Not only are men primarily engineering the products and running the companies, but they also tend to be early adopters of health care, gadgets and technologies. At the same time, 80 percent of health care decisions for the family are made by women, and 75 percent of family and informal caregivers in the home are women.
This disparity, stemming both from a technology gap and an awareness gap, is a significant problem in healthcare today, as women’s health is under addressed by providers, physicians and consumers alike.
With a new wave of digital health innovations emerging, there is an opportunity for companies to put an end to this trend by understanding the major health risks that women face, providing technologies that enable women to closely monitor and manage these threats and ultimately raise awareness for these key issues. The technologies that have the potential to truly reshape human health will be the ones that put women at the center both as the end users of the tech and as the ones most often delivering care to others.
Getting to the Heart of the Matter: Lack of Awareness
Heart disease is a prime example of the common misconceptions that exist in women’s health. Cardiovascular disease – heart attacks, strokes and arrhythmia – is often thought of as “a man’s disease,” although since 1984 more women than men have died of heart disease each year.
In a recent survey of women between the ages of 25 and 60 years old, 50 percent of respondents did not know that heart disease is actually the leading threat for women and many said they believe women are more at risk for breast cancer. Heart disease in women, however, is more deadly than all forms of cancer combined.
The portrayal of heart attacks on television does not help to close this awareness gap, as sudden cardiac arrest is not always as sudden and dramatic as it appears – especially for women. Women express heart disease differently than men, and are less likely to have extreme chest pain during a heart attack than a man and more likely to experience aching, burning, pressure or tightness in her arms, upper back, jaw, neck, shoulders or throat.
While this misconception is prevalent among consumers, it doesn’t stop there. Practitioners are also more likely to view heart disease as a men’s issue. A recent study by the European Society of Cardiology showed that male general practitioners are more likely to neglect to assess cardiovascular risk in female patients, even though the disease is more common in women. The study also showed that heart disease mortality has fallen in men more than in women, as men tend to receive better cardiovascular care and secondary prevention after a first event.
This could also be caused by the underrepresentation of women in important clinical trials, which leads to a knowledge gap in how to best diagnose and treat women, especially as they may react differently than men to many pharmaceuticals.
Caregiver, Care for Thyself
Although Rock Health’s 2015 State of Women in Healthcare Report showed that the majority of family caregivers in the home are women, women’s health issues often go underreported and undertreated. As the heart disease example shows, this is clearly an awareness issue, as many women don’t think they are at risk. For example, most women don’t know that they can even express disease differently than men as their symptoms tend to be with less chest pain and more fatigue as the major symptom of coronary artery disease.
Women are the caregivers or “chief medical officers” of their families but must also recognize that while caring for family is important, the responsibility to take care of themselves and monitor their own health should be priority No. 1. This can be done by taking the initiative to learn key risk factors, as well as adopting proactive monitoring technologies that have the potential to save their lives or the lives of their loved ones.
Organizations like the American Heart Association (AHA) are making strides to address this health care gap. Through its “Go Red for Women” campaign, the AHA attempts to raise awareness of the dangers of heart disease in women, ensuring they recognize their risks and know how to seek the help they need.
But it’s not just up to women to adopt these technologies more frequently; digital health companies must also dedicate time and resources to raising awareness and innovating technologies conducive to managing women’s health.
Tech Disconnect and How to Bridge the Gap
The digital health industry has the ability to provide women with the tools and technology to better understand their own health, but women aren’t currently leading the charge with adoption. While women have been quick to pick up fitness-oriented technologies and products like FitBit, they have not adopted clinical-grade products at the same rate.
Women represent more than 60 percent of all physician visits, manage more than two-thirds of all healthcare spending and understand better than most the key pain points in healthcare, so they have the most to gain from medical technology. Many digital health apps and services, such as AliveCor’s Kardia Mobile EKG monitor, Telcare’s blood glucose meter and MyCOPD, a platform for chronic lung disease management, would allow women to monitor their health proactively and remotely, cutting back on time-consuming doctor’s office visits. Kardia Mobile fits on a phone, in a purse or pocket and allows patients to proactively and remotely monitor their heart rhythm by conducting a 30-second EKG on their mobile device. The app will send recordings and updates to family members, allowing them to monitor the health of their loved ones.
With technology advancing our scientific understanding of health at exponentially growing rates, digital health companies must take notice of women as a largely underserved market that makes up roughly half of the population. The digital health industry has an opportunity to not just close the gap in addressing women’s health, but to go further and put women at the heart of their approach as patients and caregivers.