Opinion: We’re looking for ideas to improve women’s health 

Fifteen years ago, when I was working on economic development in low- and middle-income countries, I met with two young women farmers in India who told me they were too tired and weak to properly weed their crops.  

Why? They had recently given birth, and they were both anemic.  

That conversation underscored what is both painfully obvious yet continually ignored: It’s hard to work, feed your family, and try to get ahead when you’re sick. And yet, that’s exactly what we expect women all over the world to do. 

In fact, women’s health has been overlooked, misunderstood, or dismissed for centuries, and women and families continue to suffer the consequences. That’s why Pivotal is partnering with Lever for Change to help fund organizations working to change that. 

Lack of attention and access 

Throw a rock, and you’ll hit a statistic about the lack of research on women’s health or a story about how hard it is for women to get the care they need.  

Just consider how little we know about menopause. It affects half the human population, but less than 1% of studies on the biology of aging factor in menopause  — and less than 15% of people suffering from menopause-related symptoms get treated for them. As Bloomberg just reported, this is having a major impact on the workforce in the United States.  

Around the world, a woman dies from a preventable death associated with childbirth or pregnancy every two minutes. And in the U.S., Black women are nearly three times more likely to die from these complications than white women.  

The overwhelming majority of people suffering from autoimmune diseases, which continue to rise at alarming levels, are women — many of whom have listed their myriad symptoms of chronic pain and debilitating fatigue only to be prescribed antidepressants or have everything dismissed as stress.  

Not that stress should be overlooked; a growing body of research shows that mental and physical health are inextricably linked. As the New York Times reported in September, stress, depression, and loneliness can weaken the immune system, lead to stomach problems — which are more likely to impact women — and heighten the risk of strokes. Considering that we are in the middle of a mental health crisis that is disproportionately affecting mothers and adolescent girls, we can’t ignore this data.  

It's clear that the only thing we know definitively about women’s health is that we don’t know nearly enough. It’s long past time to fill those gaps.  

Action for Women’s Health global open call 

This past May, Pivotal’s founder Melinda French Gates committed an additional $1 billion to advancing women’s power. As part of this effort, she announced the $250 million Action for Women’s Health global open call, led by Pivotal and in partnership with Lever for Change, to support those removing barriers to mental and physical health for women and families. 

The statistics surrounding women’s health may be grim, but there are so many great ideas out there about how to change them. We want those ideas to get the attention and funding they deserve. To that end, we’re looking for applications from organizations anywhere in the world — especially from community-informed organizations who are seeking new resources to scale their ideas — that have come up with innovative ways to improve women’s mental and physical health. 

You can visit the official Action for Women’s Health webpage to learn more about how to apply and what we’re looking for, but here are a few areas we’re especially excited about.  

First, we want to increase women’s access to quality care, from policy solutions to an app you can download on your phone.  

Second, we want to see ideas that support women’s well-being throughout their entire lifespan. Interventions that support women in their reproductive years are critical — and we want to see interventions for older women, who are sometimes left out of the conversation.

Third, we are especially interested in the link between physical and mental health. Women’s health operates on a complex continuum, so we need solutions that focus on the whole picture.  

At the end of the day, we hope this open call is a catalyst — that it leads to more funding, more partnerships, more innovation, and more models to scale.  

The foundation of women’s power 

At Pivotal, much of our work focuses on women’s power — on making sure that women can participate fully in politics, become leaders in their industries, take care of themselves and their loved ones, and live life on their own terms.  If we want to fully unlock that power, then we need to focus on women’s health.

In her book “Doing Harm,” author Maya Dusenbery noted that women’s efforts to bring attention to their health challenges are often heard “not as a roar but as a whine.”

When it comes to women’s health, we have a lot to learn. And that’s what Action for Women’s Health is really about: listening to your ideas and experiences for how we can get women the healing and care that they need and deserve. 

This isn’t just an open call. It’s an invitation to roar.  

Learn more about Action for Women’s Health here.