Spotlight on women’s health: The role of gender and ethnicity differences

A panel of women’s health experts chat about gender and ethnicity — and the ways employers and the wider health care system can offer support.


In a panel discussion, Stephanie Fehr, chief people officer for UnitedHealthcare, was joined by Dr. Lisa Saul, chief medical officer of women’s health for UnitedHealthcare, Alison Richards, chief executive officer for Surest®, and Will Porteous, chief growth officer for Maven, for a thought-provoking conversation about women’s health. As the first of this 4-part series, learn more about gender and ethnicity differences and why supporting women’s health matters to employers.

The role gender plays in health care

“We know that women play a unique role in the family,” Kurtzweil says. “In general, across most families, we see that women play a leadership role when it comes to health care, making decisions not only for themselves, but for their family and especially for their children.”

Those decisions may include choosing their children’s doctors, taking children to appointments, making sure children receive doctor-recommended care and taking care of sick children. Women also typically utilize the health care system very differently — and more often — than men. When comparing women’s health care utilization to men’s, women had:1

  • 94% higher inpatient admissions (per 1,000)
  • 69% higher 24/7 Virtual Visits (per 1,000)
  • 36% higher urgent care and emergency room visits (per 1,000)
  • 27% higher outpatient surgeries (per 1,000)
  • 24% higher office visits per member per year, excluding OB/GYN visits

Their health care utilization reflects the need for reproductive services, their differences in attitude when it comes to seeking care and the way that different conditions disproportionately impact women.

When it comes to the conditions they may experience, women experience a higher prevalence of conditions, such as pregnancy or infertility and menopause, but they also have a unique set of health care concerns and are at a higher risk for developing certain conditions and diseases when compared with men:1

  • Women had 38% higher prevalence of back pain
  • Women had 6.5x higher prevalence of lupus
  • Women had 4x higher prevalence of thyroid disorders
  • Women had 66% higher prevalence of any behavioral health diagnosis
  • Women had 64% higher prevalence of any cancer diagnosis

Over the course of their lives, autoimmune disorders like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis start ramping up for women in their late 30s and 40s, and those also tend to drive some of the costly specialty care spend.

“We know that there are more women that struggle with these conditions but aren’t seeking care or aren’t being treated for these types of conditions,” Kurtzweil says, adding, “There is always the undiagnosed part of the population that the data can’t speak to.”

The role ethnicity plays in health care

A woman’s ethnicity has an impact on the utilization of the health care system too, as well as the prevalence of certain conditions.

Black, Hispanic, and American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) people, for instance, were more likely to report poor health status than their white counterparts, while Asian women were the least likely to report fair or poor health.2 Research also shows that Hispanic women are most likely to report not having a personal health care provider and not visiting a doctor annually. Asian women, however, have the lowest cancer screening rates.2

Did you know? The healthiest states for women and children include Minnesota, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Hawaii, according to America’s Health Rankings Health of Women and Children Report.3

“It’s been pretty well-documented that women of color have a different experience in the health care system than their white counterparts with regards to feelings of being dismissed, not listened to — I think women in general have that experience — but it’s particularly profound for women of color, which then may make the engagement with health care a little more reluctant,” says Dr. Lisa Saul, chief medical officer of women’s health for UnitedHealthcare.

The conditions that impact women of different ethnicities vary. Although Black and Hispanic women are more likely to develop a metabolic condition at any point in their lives compared to white women, the prevalence among these ethnicities spikes around age 50.1

3 strategies to overcome the health care challenges women face

Employers can play a role in better supporting the women in their workforces in several ways:

  1. Offer a health plan that enables members to compare costs and care. Because women often make the health care decision for themselves and their families, a no deductible health plan like Surest can be beneficial. It allows them to compare actual care and costs before an appointment, helping to address some of the barriers they face accessing care and screenings. 
  2. Offer a solution that supports the unique challenges women face. According to Maven, about 1 in 4 women have a comorbidity, or the presence of 2 or more conditions, while about 50% of members who are on the pregnancy track report dealing with a high-risk pregnancy. Offering a solution like Maven, available through the UHC Hub™, that helps women navigate their unique health situations and provides them with personalized and adaptive care plans may help lead to better health outcomes, lower costs and more supportive health care experiences.
  3. Choose a carrier that makes investments in women’s health. UnitedHealthcare has invested more than $800M in areas of economic disadvantage to try and close gaps in housing and food insecurity, with the larger aim of addressing health disparities, including those that exist between women and men, as well as among different ethnicities. The United Health Foundation has also given $5M grants to support particular populations where there are disparities in outcomes, such as the Latino population and those living with diabetes.

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