Why Fixing Women's Health Is A $1 Trillion Opportunity

Forbes

According to a new report from the McKinsey Health Institute, closing the gaps in funding and treatment for women's health could add significant money to the global economy while reducing the number of days women spend in poor health. ForbesWomen, editor, Maggie McGrath sits down with Lucy Perez, the co-leader of MHI's health equity portfolio, to discuss.   Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00 (upbeat music)

00:02 - Hi everyone, I'm Maggie McGrath,

00:05 the editor of Forbes Women, and welcome to Forbes Talks.

00:08 According to a new report from the McKinsey Health Institute

00:12 closing the women's health gap could add

00:14 a whopping $1 trillion to the global economy.

00:17 Here to tell us more is Lucy Perez.

00:20 She's one of the report's co-authors

00:22 and also the co-lead of MHI's health equity portfolio.

00:26 Lucy, thank you so much for joining us.

00:28 Now, you found that women spend 25% more time

00:32 in poor health than men, and eliminating this statistic

00:36 could add a tremendous amount of money

00:37 to the global economy.

00:39 Let's just break that down.

00:40 Where does this $1 trillion come from

00:44 and how do we unlock it?

00:45 - Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here

00:49 and have this conversation,

00:51 because indeed a $1 trillion addition to global GDP

00:55 is a big number, so we are all very motivated

00:59 to understand what it'll take to unlock it

01:02 and what are the actions that can collectively be taken.

01:05 The reality is that there's a lot of myths

01:08 around women's health, and it all begins with this thinking

01:12 that because women live longer than men on average,

01:15 that they are healthier.

01:16 But as you mentioned, the fact is that women spend 25%

01:20 more time in poor health than men do.

01:23 This is the women's health gap that we're talking about.

01:25 And if we're able to close it,

01:27 we can realize that $1 trillion opportunity.

01:31 And it comes from four places.

01:33 First and foremost is from having women be healthier longer,

01:37 so having more healthy days and preventing absenteeism

01:40 from the workforce.

01:42 The second one, it is about being able

01:44 to be more productive each day,

01:46 'cause you may not be showing up to work

01:49 dealing with the symptoms.

01:50 Like many of us know that even when we're not feeling

01:52 100%, we still show up to work,

01:55 but may not be as productive as when we're in full health.

01:58 The third one is that this should also help women

02:01 live longer and as such, make choices about staying

02:04 in the workforce for a longer period of time.

02:07 And finally, it is about expanded workforce participation.

02:11 Too often, women play the role of the unpaid caregiver,

02:15 taking care of others.

02:17 And again, as others, and that includes men and women,

02:20 are in better health, more of these women

02:22 that are in those unpaid caregiver roles

02:25 can move into paid roles in the workforce.

02:28 So these are the four ways that together add

02:31 to at least a trillion dollars in economic contribution

02:35 on an annual basis.

02:37 - Now, I think when we talk about women's health,

02:39 most people think of reproductive health, right?

02:41 The things you discuss with your OB-GYN, for instance.

02:45 But this report didn't just look at sexual

02:48 and reproductive health.

02:49 So what does women's health mean to you and MHI

02:52 when we talk about this issue as a whole?

02:54 - It's a great point that you're making

02:56 about the definition of women's health,

02:58 because indeed too often it is simplified

03:01 to be sexual and reproductive health,

03:03 which is extremely important.

03:05 But that taken together only represents about 5%

03:09 of the total women's health burden.

03:11 The majority of it actually comes from conditions

03:14 that impact both men and women.

03:17 And what is really interesting is that for more than half

03:20 of that burden, it is conditions that impact women

03:23 differently or disproportionately for men.

03:26 It is conditions where like in cardiovascular disease,

03:30 you may manifest the symptoms of a heart attack

03:33 differently between a woman and a man.

03:36 And as a result, your healthcare provider needs

03:38 to be very much aware of what those differences are

03:42 to be able to have the proper treatment

03:44 for a better health outcome.

03:46 - Let's dig into that a little bit,

03:48 because I have family history of cardiovascular health,

03:52 so I've seen female relatives share infographics

03:55 on Facebook and Instagram about these are the signs

03:58 to watch for in a heart attack,

04:00 and it will present differently than men.

04:02 When we talk about gaps in health,

04:05 why are women spending so much more time in poor health?

04:09 Is it that the research hasn't been done?

04:12 Is it that there's a lack of funding?

04:14 Is it that, I suspect the answer is all of the above?

04:17 What's driving some of this?

04:19 - It's a little bit all of the above, right?

04:23 It starts with the fact that we have a lot of gaps

04:26 in basic science understanding,

04:29 in even asking the question,

04:31 are there sex-based differences?

04:33 You know, as part of the work that we did,

04:35 we looked at over 650 reports of effectiveness

04:40 of different interventions across a whole range

04:43 of conditions that together account for almost 90%

04:46 of the women's health burden,

04:48 and of those more than 650 reports,

04:52 about half of them did not include any reference

04:55 to sex-based differences, to asking the question,

04:58 are those differences there?

05:00 For the half that did, two-thirds of them showed

05:03 that actually there were worse outcomes

05:05 for women than for men.

05:07 So there's a bit of, we don't have the understanding,

05:11 we don't have the data to ask the question,

05:14 are the differences there?

05:17 There are often times where we do know

05:19 what those differences are, as in cardiovascular disease,

05:22 but for example, the treatment protocols in hospitals

05:26 and clinics do not account for them.

05:29 We don't have the checklist that helped that provider

05:32 be aware of how to treat women and men differently.

05:36 And finally, this is a space that it is very underfunded.

05:40 There needs to be a lot more funding going

05:43 into these conditions and understanding

05:45 sex-based differences, which you would anticipate

05:49 given the great prevalence of some of these.

05:52 For example, endometriosis, a condition that impacts

05:56 almost one in 10 women, but when you look at the pipeline

06:00 of therapies in development or what's already available,

06:05 it is so much smaller than what you would expect

06:08 for something that impacts so many people around the globe.

06:12 - So what I'm hearing is that there's kind of almost

06:14 like this pipeline and it's not a virtuous cycle,

06:18 it's the opposite of this, right?

06:20 There's not enough funding, so then there's not

06:22 enough understanding, so then there's not enough treatment

06:25 and so on and so on and so on.

06:28 Is that a correct summary?

06:30 - I think that is spot on.

06:31 And so we need to be able to tackle all of it, right?

06:35 From the basic science to how care is being delivered

06:39 to how are we collecting the data to understand

06:42 how big is the need, what is working, what is not,

06:46 and then of course the funding and financing mechanisms

06:49 that enable all of this.

06:51 - Now, when you talk about the funding

06:52 and financing mechanisms,

06:53 are we talking about federal funding?

06:55 Are we talking about funding for startups

06:57 that are working in these spaces?

06:58 Are we talking about funding on the corporate sector

07:00 or again, is it an all of the above answer?

07:03 - It is a little bit of all of the above.

07:05 We need the funding across the whole ecosystem.

07:09 I mean, one of the things we know

07:11 and I know your audience gets,

07:13 there's a lot of entrepreneurs who may be listening to us

07:17 and we know this is an area where frankly,

07:19 private equity venture capital dollars

07:22 are still not necessarily keeping pace

07:24 with what you would expect the demand to be

07:27 for these products and offerings.

07:29 Definitely seeing positive trends,

07:31 but this is a space where I would anticipate

07:34 as there's a better understanding of the opportunity,

07:37 we will see much more investment in this area.

07:40 - Now, something that I thought was really interesting

07:42 in this report was you made a distinction

07:44 between the years of life lost versus quality of life

07:49 that science often looks at.

07:51 Oftentimes, if I'm summarizing this correctly,

07:54 we're looking at what is the average lifespan of a person

07:57 and not the quality of life.

07:59 Can you talk about why it's important

08:01 to draw that distinction and what that means

08:03 for research in women's health?

08:06 - Absolutely, and indeed, very often we think of age

08:10 as the ultimate health metric.

08:12 And because of that, we again,

08:14 make that incorrect assumption that women are healthier

08:17 because they on average live longer than men,

08:20 but they live longer in poor health,

08:23 this quality of life metric that you're referring to, Maggie.

08:27 And so the reality is that many of the conditions

08:30 that impact women disproportionately

08:33 and lead to this additional health burden

08:36 are conditions that impact quality of life.

08:39 And so they are still alive, but living in poor health.

08:43 This is the case, for example,

08:44 with many immunological conditions,

08:47 conditions like multiple sclerosis,

08:49 to name one as an example.

08:51 And so as we think about how investments

08:55 are being made in understanding,

08:57 of course, we want to continue to understand

08:59 those that impact years of life lived,

09:03 but we should not underestimate the importance

09:06 of addressing the need associated also with these conditions

09:09 that impact quality of life

09:11 and have significant economic implications

09:14 because they are taking women out of the workforce,

09:17 for example, and leading to keeping them

09:20 from living full lives with their loved ones.

09:23 - We've talked about cardiovascular health

09:25 and multiple sclerosis and other diseases

09:28 that affect people of all genders,

09:30 where there are then disparities

09:32 in how women are understood and treated.

09:35 If you had to make a wishlist, a top 10 list,

09:38 are there certain diseases that if you could snap

09:41 your fingers and direct funding,

09:43 you would direct it to those diseases right now?

09:47 - I think everyone has their preferred list of diseases,

09:50 right, and areas where they would want

09:52 to redirect funding to.

09:54 For me, as I think of the different categories

09:57 that we've been talking about, right,

09:59 whether it's conditions that impact women uniquely,

10:03 differently, or disproportionately, right,

10:05 that's the collective of how we're defining women's health.

10:08 I would say in terms of how we understand those conditions

10:13 that impact women uniquely, for me,

10:15 there are three things that are very much front and center.

10:19 One is just a much better understanding of menstruation

10:23 and menstrual health that would be really helpful

10:28 to have as we support women.

10:30 Hand in hand with that is also just a better understanding

10:34 of the ways to support women through menopause.

10:37 We know that menopause hits women

10:40 when they're in their prime working years

10:42 and can have very significant impacts.

10:44 So that is another one, and endometriosis,

10:47 which I alluded to earlier, it is, you know,

10:50 as we got through this research,

10:51 one of the things that surprised me most

10:53 was how long it takes on average

10:56 for a woman to get an endometriosis diagnosis.

10:59 It is at least 10 years.

11:01 That is 10 years of suffering of women being told

11:04 it's in their head, this is normal pain,

11:07 you just have to deal with it.

11:09 So those are a few of the areas, right,

11:11 that I would think of from those conditions

11:14 that impact women uniquely.

11:16 I think in the category of impacting women differently,

11:20 we talked about cardiovascular disease.

11:22 This is, you know, one of the number one killer, right?

11:25 So how do we, you know, have a better understanding

11:29 and apply that understanding

11:31 to the way that care is delivered, right?

11:33 So that we get to those better health outcomes.

11:36 And in terms of the, you know, an area

11:39 that I think also deserves, you know,

11:42 more attention in terms of understanding those differences

11:45 and how to care for women since they suffer from it

11:48 disproportionately are those immunological conditions.

11:52 So those would be some of the examples.

11:54 I mean, you keep me on here

11:57 and I'll probably keep listing more,

11:58 but maybe let's pause with those.

12:00 - The 10 year metric that you cited

12:04 with endometriosis is just astounding.

12:07 And I've heard it before, but it's still,

12:08 every time I hear it, I think about the time lost

12:11 and the money spent.

12:12 And your report also does look at the fact

12:16 that as women are spending 25% more time in poor health,

12:20 they're also spending more money on average than men

12:23 on their healthcare costs.

12:25 Can you get into those figures a little bit

12:27 because they might sound small at first,

12:30 but then when I think about the long-term effect

12:32 of all the days and money spent addressing this poor health,

12:36 it adds up to a tremendous amount, does it not?

12:39 - Absolutely.

12:41 And I mean, the reality is that women make most

12:44 of the healthcare decisions in their households, right?

12:48 So that's something else to keep in mind.

12:50 But the reality is because of this 25%

12:53 of additional time spent in poor health,

12:56 if we translate that into numbers

12:58 that each of us can relate to, if we get this right,

13:01 if we close that gap, we're talking on average,

13:04 every single woman having an additional day,

13:07 seven days of being in good health.

13:10 I mean, think of, that is significant.

13:13 When we add it all together, across the globe,

13:16 we're talking about 137 million women

13:20 that can be fully in the workforce.

13:23 Think about the economic opportunity that represents.

13:26 And I think we all have those around us,

13:30 whether it be ourselves, our friends,

13:32 our mothers, our daughters, right?

13:34 That we know that the experiences

13:36 that they are going through, where, for example,

13:38 they're being told that pain is normal, it's in your head.

13:42 We need to correct that.

13:43 We need to listen to women and provide the solutions

13:47 that help close this health gap.

13:48 - And that seven days of extra healthy time

13:52 and the 137 million, is that per year or is that over?

13:55 - Right, that is per year, each year.

13:58 - That's astounding.

14:00 Now, you talked about the kind of call to action

14:02 for private equity investors and venture capitalists

14:05 and investors as a whole.

14:07 For the founders who might be watching this, Lucy,

14:09 what are the opportunities?

14:11 If there's someone saying,

14:13 "I really wanna start a company in healthcare

14:15 and I want to address a white space."

14:19 What's the white space you see?

14:20 What's the opportunity for the founders watching?

14:23 - Yes, well, the good news is

14:25 there's lots of opportunity, right?

14:27 And it spans the whole gamut, as we were saying earlier,

14:30 in terms there's opportunities

14:32 in terms of the basic innovation.

14:35 How do we deliver, identify more solutions

14:39 to treat these conditions that right now

14:42 are going untreated or are going undiagnosed

14:45 for far too long?

14:47 So that is one big area of opportunity.

14:49 Another one, it is around how are we supporting these women

14:53 and the solutions to enable that better care

14:56 that recognizes those sex-based differences

14:59 and supports the better health outcome.

15:02 Another one, frankly, you know,

15:04 Gen AI, I feel is like the hot topic of the day, right?

15:07 And there's a lot of talk and promise

15:09 around how can we leverage that?

15:12 But we need to be mindful of the fact

15:14 in this space we're lacking a lot of data.

15:17 I alluded to earlier how, you know,

15:19 so many reports of unaffectedness of different interventions

15:23 have not asked the question

15:25 of those sex-based differences, right?

15:27 Or as we look at counting the women's health burden,

15:31 we see that there are very significant gaps.

15:35 One of the biggest databases

15:37 around global burden of disease

15:39 actually assumes that less than half of the women

15:42 going through menopause are going through menopause, right?

15:45 So that is a massive gap in counting.

15:50 And so there's a lot of opportunity also in the data space

15:53 around how are we collecting the data,

15:55 what data exists to understand the women's health burden

16:00 and importantly, the effectiveness

16:02 of different interventions.

16:04 And so as we have better data,

16:07 investors can make better decisions, right?

16:09 There can be a better understanding

16:10 of how big that pie can be

16:12 if you manage to develop a solution that is effective,

16:15 that helps contribute towards closing the gap.

16:18 So the word to entrepreneurs is

16:20 there's a lot of opportunity in this space.

16:23 - Well, that's a positive note to end on

16:25 because I think some of these statistics

16:27 can feel a little depressing, honestly,

16:29 thinking about how much time women are spending

16:32 in poor health, but it sounds like

16:34 you really have a message for folks

16:36 that there's an opportunity here

16:38 and that this gap can be closed.

16:42 Can this gap be closed?

16:43 - Absolutely.

16:45 I think this is a story of optimism and opportunity.

16:49 It starts from a place of frustration one could argue,

16:54 when you think of how big this gap is,

16:57 the number of 25% more time spent in poor health

17:01 by women than by men.

17:03 But the reality is this is addressable

17:06 and that is the key message.

17:07 We need to start by raising awareness of the gap,

17:10 that it exists, but that it is addressable

17:13 and that we can address by investing in the basic science

17:16 to understand those sex-based differences,

17:19 having the data in hand to understand this gap

17:22 and what works, developing sex-appropriate care,

17:27 with that understanding of what works

17:29 so that we close those health outcome gaps,

17:32 putting in the right financing mechanisms

17:35 to support this, making sure that the policies

17:39 that are in place support women's health.

17:42 This is something where everyone has a role to play,

17:45 not just people in the healthcare space,

17:47 but any employer, for example,

17:49 thinking about what policies exist in the workplace

17:52 to support women going through menopause,

17:54 as an example, is a way that everyone has a role to play

17:58 in closing the women's health gap.

18:01 - Lucy, that was such a comprehensive overview.

18:03 Before we officially end,

18:04 are there any other big numbers

18:06 that you would call out from this report

18:07 that the Forbes audience should know about

18:09 and consider as they either think

18:11 about their investment strategies

18:12 or their entrepreneurial strategies?

18:15 - Well, a quick summary of the numbers

18:17 that I hope the audience takes away.

18:19 First, women spending 25% more time in poor health than men.

18:24 The majority of this time is actually happening

18:27 during women's prime working years.

18:30 If we address this, and the good news is this gap

18:32 is addressable, this is how we can add

18:35 over a trillion dollars to the global economy each year.

18:40 And that represents seven more days

18:44 of healthy living per woman per year,

18:46 or an additional 137 million women

18:49 globally joining the workforce.

18:51 - Lucy Perez, thank you so much for joining us,

18:53 and thank you for sharing this data with us.

18:55 We really appreciate it.

18:57 - Maggie, thanks so much for inviting me

18:58 to this conversation.

19:00 (silence)

19:02 (silence)

19:04 (silence)

19:06 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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