From heart attack to stroke to mental health concerns, men and women may have different symptoms when they get sick—but you’d never know it. While Congress passed a federal law requiring that women and minorities be included in drug trials and medical research back in 1993, the gender gap in healthcare has yet to be closed. With the white male body still standing in as the physiological “norm,” women still suffer from longer waits in urgent and emergency care, more misdiagnoses, worse quality of care, and less comprehensive treatment and follow-up.
The gender healthcare gap by the numbers
Even though American women use the emergency department more frequently than men, it takes longer on average for them to receive care, waiting almost 30% longer to be seen by a doctor. This can play out in different ways depending on which condition they’re seeking care for.
Heart attacks: According to the American Heart Association, women experiencing chest pain wait in hospital emergency rooms nearly 11 minutes longer than men before they are seen by a healthcare provider. Yet women’s heart health is underfunded and under-researched. Nationwide, only one-third of cardiovascular disease clinical trial subjects are assigned female at birth¹, despite the fact that it is the number one killer of women in the United States.
Depression: Major depression is growing in overall disease burden around the world. Predicted to be the leading cause of disease burden by 2030, it’s already the leading cause in women worldwide. One study showed that patients who were both severely anxious and depressed visited the emergency department nearly twice as often as men. Another suggested that greater symptoms of depression were associated with greater difficulties accessing care overall.
Strokes: Stroke is a leading cause of death for women. According to the CDC, 1 in 5 women between the ages of 55 and 75 will have a stroke. Women have unique risk factors for stroke. These include high blood pressure during pregnancy and using certain types of birth control medicines, especially if they also smoke. Stroke is a leading cause of death among African American women, who are more likely to die from a stroke than non-Hispanic White women or Hispanic women in the United States.
Different risk factors, different symptoms
Women can also have different risk factors for certain conditions than men do. Age, family history, lifestyle choices, whether or not they’re menopausal, and health status and medical conditions can all play a role in whether they develop a medical condition. Womens’ symptoms, too, can be different, sometimes in ways that many medical providers don’t account for. Lack of education around gender-based risk factors, symptoms, and treatment can not only lessen health outcomes for women, but make pursuing healthcare more stressful and uncomfortable, especially during an emergency (or something that feels like one).
Heart attack: Unlike most men, many women feel upper back pressure, jaw pain, and shortness of breath. These symptoms are less recognized than chest or arm pain, even though women are more likely than men to die after having a heart attack.
Stroke: Most people recognize the common symptoms of stroke: sudden weakness on one side of the body, loss of speech and balance, and confusion. In the United States, women are more likely to have strokes, but can experience symptoms less common in men, including fainting, hallucinations, vomiting, hiccups, and seizures.
Chronic stress: Women are more likely to experience chronic stress than men, which can lead to depression if left untreated. There are many symptoms associated with chronic stress, but women are more likely to experience headaches, gastrointestinal complaints, or the need to cry.
How Sollis helps prevent women’s healthcare emergencies
While the gender healthcare gap is a systemic issue, personalized treatment can help mitigate some of the many problems it causes for women seeking medical care. With the personalized concierge medicine offered by Sollis Health, we offer on-demand care, same-day appointments, rapid diagnostics, expedited specialist visits, and care navigation to keep our women members connected to their current and long-term health in a way that traditional care—especially traditional urgent and emergency care—cannot.
Sollis Health doesn’t just elevate urgent and emergency medicine. With powerful proactive and preventative care, Sollis supports our members in getting to know their health at a deeper level by discovering their risk factors for serious health conditions.
MRI screenings: We partner with Prenuvo to help members rule out hundreds of conditions, from cancer to scoliosis, with your Sollis team by your side.
Heart health: Members receive complimentary CT scans when clinically indicated. These noninvasive tests take detailed images of the calcium deposits in the arteries to determine your heart attack or stroke risk.
Respiratory infections: Whether you’ve been exposed or are already symptomatic, Sollis offers rapid diagnostics with SPOTFIRE ®, a PCR-based technology that diagnoses flu, COVID-19, pneumonia, and other conditions in as few as 15 minutes.
Cancer: With partner Modern Ritual, Sollis offers in-center skin checks and can connect you with our network of leading dermatologists if you need to follow up with a specialist. With partner Galleri, members can access a screening that doubles the number of cancers detected before they’re even symptomatic.
Research shows that investing in women’s health results in a healthier overall population, healthier future generations, and greater social and economic benefits. While every Sollis member receives the concierge treatment, our awareness of the ways that gender can impact healthcare makes it possible to keep everyone out of the ER 99% of the time.
