Hologic Global Women's Health Index again comes up with new ranking and factors while observing that women’s health in UK has not improved in last three years. The index mentions numerous reasons behind the tedious speed of Women’s health improvements. 

In this new era of health-conscious individuals, it is critical to maintain a healthy lifestyle where personal care plays a crucial role. Understanding the significance of women’s well-being has to be the top most priority when it comes to a disease-free society.

Having a healthy body from within is something that makes a woman’s day to day life much easier since they are the nurturers of creating life. Amongst a plethora of problems that women come across throughout their lives, having poor health would make it even worse for them to maintain a balanced conduct. In order to keep up with their well-being, women need proper access to all necessities in terms of health-related queries. This will ensure that their complete attention is on the progress in both, personal and professional life.

Although improvements have been made, yet there remain several areas that are still struggling to provide adequate health access to women. Besides, a good proportion of women are there who personally don’t pay much of an attention to their health. This can lead to several health diseases and mental health issues as well. 

Women’s Health in the UK

A new study has been conducted by the 3rd annual Hologic Global Women's Health Index in an alliance with Gallup, a leading analytics firm. The survey reveals that women’s health in the United Kingdom has not improved in the last three years while it has been mentioned that lack of progress in preventive care and reduced satisfaction with pregnancy care serves as the key concerns.

A total of 97 per cent of women and girl’s feelings, opinions and experiences across the world represent the index. All those women/girls are 15 and beyond. The index reveals the worrying trends in women's health worldwide. This indicates towards the fact that there’s still a need of attention to the improvement of women’s health in the kingdom.

Key points of the Report

The index had covered five interlocking dimensions of women's health which include, Preventive Care, Basic Needs, Opinions of Health & Safety, Individual Health and Emotional Health.

For 2024’s data collection, it assigned 1 to 100 score to each amongst 143 countries and territories while informing that a score of 60 has been acquired by UK out of 100 which equivalents to the last year’s results. Observing a fall of seven places in the global ranking, UK ranks at 37 which is a major concern and it indicates towards a call to action to understand the key reasons behind this low-lying ranking.

There are numerous factors that lie behind this ranking. One of the reasons could be the addition of more countries into the index in the year 2022 while other countries are leapfrogging the UK. Remarkably, United Kingdome still lags behind EU and the foremost causes are preventive care testing especially in the high blood pressure areas where UK scores 44 per cent and EU scores 47 per cent, cancers area’s ratio remains at 19 per cent vs 20 per cent, diabetes at 22 per cent vs 24 per cent and STIs at 5 per cent vs 10 per cent.

Another key factor is a decline in women’s satisfaction with pregnancy care in the UK, as per the index. The numbers show 74 per cent of women believes such care in the UK was of high quality as compared to last year’s 77 per cent. The report also shows a deterioration in maternity care.

Besides the physical body, the report has mentioned the significant concern regarding the emotional well-being of women in the UK as well. Considering the emotional health, there is a need of access to counselling and support services too. The index reports 38 per cent of women having feelings of worry, 32 per cent have sadness, 39 per cent goes to stress and 17 per cent to anger.

Actions Statements Need

All the factors mentioned in the report exemplifies that UK women needs more attention in terms of mental health as well as physical health issues. Sadness being the sole reason in continuous increase over the years that calculates to every 1 in 3 women i.e., 32 per cent in the UK.

General Manager for Hologic UK & Ireland, Tim Simpson urges, “This third year of findings continues to call for action and improvement. It is crucial that we address these gaps in women's healthcare with urgency and commitment, particularly as over 1 in 4 (26%) of women have health problems that prevent them from engaging in normal activity.”

He added, “The Hologic Global Women’s Health Index serves as a comprehensive benchmark of women’s health to help fill a critical gap in what the world knows about the well-being of 50% of the world’s population.”

With this ranking and factors, we need to understand that women requires a lot to make improvements in their health which will help the global health to balance out.