In its fifth year, the annual Hologic Global Women’s Health Index found only minimal improvements in preventive screening rates from the first report, and no change at all in an overall analysis of women’s health around the world.
Since the index—which Hologic developed in partnership with Gallup—debuted in 2021, the women’s health-focused medtech has repeatedly warned about a sizable “Screening Action Gap” in which many women are skipping recommended tests for preventable health conditions. The latest report, published Tuesday and based on a survey of 145,000 people across 144 countries and territories, confirms that the gap still very much exists.
The survey found that 13% of women reported undergoing testing for any type of cancer over the preceding year, while 39% said they’d been tested for high blood pressure and about a quarter had been tested for diabetes—representing improvements of just one, six and five points since the report’s first year, respectively. Meanwhile, only 10% said they’d been tested for sexually transmitted infections in the last year, a one-point drop since Year 1.
While those numbers represent five-year highs for cancer, blood pressure and diabetes screening, Hologic estimated that more than half of girls and women aged 15 and up have not undergone those preventive screenings in the last year.
“It is encouraging to see needed increases in preventive care screening rates in this year’s Index data, but we cannot mistake progress for success,” Hologic CEO Stephen MacMillan said in Tuesday’s announcement. “With 1.5 billion women still missing lifesaving screenings, women’s health needs are just as urgent as they have ever been. We now have five years of data that highlight what works; now we must turn data and discussion into action.”
Elsewhere, the report calculates an overall score for the state of women’s health globally each year, based on survey responses across five key dimensions of health: preventive care, emotional health, opinions on health and safety, basic needs and individual health.
In the latest edition of the report, while preventive care and personal safety saw improvements, high rates of worry and sadness affected emotional health, and large proportions of women continued to report poor physical health and struggles to afford basics like food and housing.
Altogether, that resulted in an index score of 54 out of 100, the same as in Year 1. As Hologic wrote in the report, “This means that despite important gains in some areas, global women’s health has not improved overall in recent years.”
In pursuit of such improvements, Hologic wrapped up the report by offering four suggestions, all of which will require “collaboration and a global commitment.” They include setting up country-specific strategies to improve women’s lifelong health and wellness; expanding both public and private investments in research into and tools for boosting women’s health outcomes; addressing structural barriers to care; and increasing access to screening and early detection.
“Women and their advocates need to be actively represented in shaping health policy, research agendas and funding decisions,” the report concluded. “Collaboration can produce meaningful—and lasting—change that ensures women everywhere have the opportunity to reach their full health potential, with lasting benefits that ripple across the globe, making a positive impact on economies, families and societies for generations to come.”