Quiz: How Much Do You Know About Women’s Health?

Women face a complex set of health challenges, in realms of reproductive and sexual health, mental health, and beyond.

At Project HOPE, we prioritize the health and well-being of women and girls. We have worked to save the lives of mothers and babies around the world since 1985. We focus on building a more equitable world and delivering health care to the world’s most marginalized and underserved communities — and in every context, that includes women.

How familiar are you with the health issues women face? Test your knowledge with these true-or-false questions below.

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How did you do?

1. Women who regularly provide care for others with illnesses or disabilities are less likely to experience depression and anxiety.

False. Women who are caregivers are at greater risk of developing mental health conditions. In the U.S., two of every three caregivers are women. Globally, women make up 70% of the health workforce and 90% of the social care workforce.

The stress of these personal and professional roles has only been heightened in the context of COVID-19. In the U.S., nearly half of women health workers have experienced burnout during the pandemic, compared to around 42% of men, and nearly 40% reported mental health issues of anxiety and depression, compared to 26% of men.

2. A woman’s lifetime risk of maternal death is 1 in 540 in high-income countries and 1 in 450 in low-income countries.

False. In high-income countries, a women’s risk of death due to pregnancy is 1 in 5,400, versus 1 in 45 in low-income countries. That’s 120 women in a low-income country for every one woman in a high-income country.

Why is the difference so drastic? Women in low-income countries have more pregnancies on average, and they’re also less likely to have skilled care. Fewer than half of all births are attended by trained health workers, while in high-income countries, over 90% of births are in the presence of skilled care.

3. COVID-19 has led to nearly 500,000 additional pregnancies due to the loss of family planning services.

False — it’s more than double. According to emerging evidence, around 12 million women lost their access to modern contraceptives at the start of the pandemic. Disruptions lasted nearly four months on average, and the result was nearly 1.4 million unintended pregnancies across 115 low- and middle-income countries in 2020. It’s projected that this number could be as high as 2.7 million.

Many countries continue to struggle to maintain or restore access to lifesaving family planning services, underscoring the long-lasting impacts of a global health crisis the scale of COVID-19.

4. Women are twice as likely as men to experience depression.

True. Women are more likely to experience mental health conditions in general and twice as likely to experience depression.

Researchers point to a list of gender-specific risks and social distresses to help explain the trend, including the disproportionate responsibility for the household and caregiving, socioeconomic disadvantages, income inequality, and low status and rank, as well as gender-based violence.

5. Globally, one in three women experience gender-based violence.

True. And violence has increased by 20% during the pandemic, leading to over 1 million additional cases of domestic violence every single week as of May 2021. In the first few months of COVID-19, the UN sounded an alarm for the “Shadow Pandemic” happening with the rising levels of violence against women during lockdown.

Gender-based violence is a flagrant violation of human rights, and there are a myriad of lifelong health consequences including injury, pregnancy, and mental health conditions like depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Women are twice as likely as men to experience depression and affected by PTSD more than any other group of people.

6. Women were only required to be included in medical research starting in 1970.

False. In the U.S., it wasn’t until the passage of the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act in 1993 that women and people of color had to be represented in federally funded research.

And there are still huge gaps in knowledge on women’s health. As scientists race to catch up, women live with the consequences every day. For example, it can take years for women to get properly diagnosed with autoimmune diseases (which impact more women than men) and as long as a decade to be diagnosed with conditions like endometriosis, one of the most common gynecological diseases.

7. Cancer is the leading cause of premature death for women in the U.S.

False. Heart disease is the leading cause of premature death for women living in the U.S. And new science suggests mental health can impact heart health, particularly for women, which is especially alarming.

If you’re still wondering why it matters that women be included in clinical research, consider the 2021 study that finds doctors may have been using the wrong metric for women’s blood pressure— that the target systolic blood pressure for women should be less than 110, not less than 120 like it is for men. This means many women at risk of heart disease have gone without preventative care.