Global medical technology company Hologic has launched the Hologic Global Women’s Health Index, a world-first study to represent the health of more than 3.9 billion women and girls.
“The Hologic Global Women’s Health Index provides a starting point for Australia and the rest of the world to benchmark and address the health issues facing women and girls today,” Hologic Vice President and General Manager, ANZ Paul Braico, said.
The Index shows that Australia ranks in the top 10 countries globally regarding the health of women and girls, scoring 64 out of 100.
It also highlights gaps in women’s screening and preventive care while taking a deeper dive into perspectives on mental health and health and safety.
“We understand firsthand the importance of early detection, diagnosis and treatment in tackling the issues affecting women and girls’ health but without access to data, you can’t measure this,” Mr Braico said.
The Index also raised concerns about domestic violence, with women in Australia more likely than men to see domestic violence as a widespread problem (87% vs. 72%).
“Nine in 10 women see domestic violence as a widespread problem and women are far less likely to feel safe walking alone at night in their communities compared to men,” Mr Braico said.
“Australian women are also more likely than men to say they experienced stress and sadness for much of the previous day.
“Encouragingly, we are seeing attitudes shift over the last few years and with greater collaboration we can help address these problems,” he said.
Reported cancer screenings have fallen short of the 50% that would be expected if all Australian women complied with guidelines for 45- to 74-year-olds to have biannual breast cancer screenings.
Slightly more than one in three women (35%) aged 45 to 75 years old report being screened for any type of cancer in the past year.
However, 83% of Australians say they are satisfied with the availability of quality healthcare in their area.
“Gender-specific data collection is vital, not only to understand the health needs of women, girls and gender-diverse people living in Australia but also to identify any gaps and outliers,” Janet Michelmore AO, CEO of leading not for profit Jean Hailes for Women’s Health said.
“As an industry, we need to be constantly listening, learning and responding to be able to support, educate and ensure accessible health for all,” she said.
Hologic is calling for greater collaboration on global healthcare, leveraging the Index’s data and insights to guide the development of actionable and measurable plans and investments that prioritise women’s health effectively both in Australia and around the world.
The Index provides an actionable, science-backed data roadmap for improving life expectancy and quality of life for women and girls worldwide and was developed in partnership with analytics and advice firm Gallup.
It’s an unprecedented in-depth examination of critical markers for women’s health, by country and territory, and over time.
“This report provides a metric to guide policy decisions and initiatives to improve women’s health on both a national and global level. These data are timely and critical as the world recalibrates from the assault of a global pandemic,” a global leader in nursing, health care, and advocacy Professor Patricia Davidson, University of Wollongong Vice-Chancellor, said.
The Index findings are based on the experiences of more than 120,000 people from 116 countries and territories in 40 languages.
Hologic is committed to ongoing surveying to benchmark results in the long term and conducting the Index on a regular basis, delivering the data to world leaders to take action. A second Index will be delivered later this year.
For more information about the Hologic Global Women’s Health Index and year one findings, please visit hologic.womenshealthindex.com.
