Healthcare Inequality

By Shreya Aggarwal 

In 2025, an era where women finally have the opportunity and right to vote and own property, gender bias continues to persist in subtle yet deeply consequential ways. Most importantly, there is still a gap in the way that women are treated compared to men for healthcare issues, including but definitely not limited to – cardiovascular care. 

Despite cardiovascular disease being one of the leading causes for women’s death, there is still underfunded research for women when it comes to cardiovascular disease compared to men. This lack of funding causes a disparity in the research investment for women’s health as well as clinical resources whereas there is a surplus funding for male-centric studies and male modelled diseases. When there is a lack of funding for women’s research, it causes fewer clinical trials to include women as participants or to even have women scientists lead the trials as well. 

Additionally, this lack of funding also stems from the issue of a lack of awareness and studies for diseases in women. Most research often sets men as the default, with an assumption that the symptoms that are present in men are the same symptoms that will be present in women, which is incorrect. We cannot equate the two due to the physiological differences between men and women, which may cause very different symptoms between them. As an example, women experience heart attack symptoms a lot more differently than men – specifically, women experience fatigue, nausea, or jaw pain, rather than the typical chest pain or tightness that men tend to feel. Hence, in many situations, it becomes difficult to detect women’s symptoms that are present because the diagnostic tools and treatments are calibrated for men. Because many treatments are formulated using male data, many of the medications or technology are not as effective when used for women. Even when medications like beta blockers or statins work in women, there can be a plethora of side effects to them since they were not tested in women beforehand; it can be difficult to determine the right dosage of medication for women in the first place due to a lack of clinical trials. This is problematic because this means it is harder to diagnose heart disease in women, and therefore it may progress too far into an advanced stage before we can use preventative measures. 

In one instance, only about 1% of health-care related research and innovation funding was devoted to female-specific conditions in cardiovascular oncology. This clearly reflects how there is a big gap when it comes to research for men vs women. Another study shows that women experiencing heart attacks are up to 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed compared to men, which can be detrimental to women’s health. A misdiagnosis can lead to serious long-term cardiovascular damage, or in extreme circumstances it can even lead to death. Especially when it comes to healthcare, it is important that we do not let these gaps be the reason that certain groups are harmed in any way. To move towards equality, researchers must make sure to equally allocate resources to female-focused cardiovascular research and ensure fair representation in clinical study.