Why Women’s health matters
- Women do health differently. Women’s health and wellbeing are significantly impacted by social determinants like education, employment, income, access to health services, safe and affordable housing and domestic and sexual violence.
- The negative health burden of social determinants is greater for women as they are more likely to earn less than men, to be in unpaid caring roles, to be socially isolated or victims of past trauma.
- A gender lens is essential to respond to the different needs of women and men and help ensure social determinants strengthen, rather than undermine, health and wellbeing.
- Gender bias in medical research persists to this day with women continuing to be under-represented in clinical trials. When women receive treatment based on the results of studies of men, unanticipated adverse events can occur because of gender specific differences.
- Women are over-represented among people who have anxiety, depression, stress, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and eating disorders.
- Women live longer so are more likely than men to live with disability and chronic conditions.
- Women are also more likely to have unique health concerns and issues that relate to their gender and their life roles, such as pregnancy and childbirth. This means they will use health services and medicines more frequently, and over a longer period of time, increasing the demand on the health system and expenditure on health care costs.
- Advancing gender equity in the ACT strengthens our economy and creates social benefits for all Canberrans.
Why Canberra matters
- The ACT has the highest median disposable household income in Australia yet over 37,400 Canberrans live in poverty.
- Because ACT residents generally have higher weekly earnings than the national average, those who don’t can experience issues that impact negatively on their access to health services including costs, location and transport barriers.
- The gender pay gap in the ACT in 2019 was 12.5% in favour of men.
- The industries in the ACT with the highest proportion of women working part time also have the lowest hourly pay.
- 81.8% of single parent households in the ACT are women.
- 53% of people with a disability in the ACT are women – that’s 8.5% of the total population.
- Women are three times more likely to suffer violence at the hands of an intimate partner than men in the ACT.
- Over half of Canberra’s homeless population are women. Older single women are the fastest growing cohort of homeless people in the ACT.
- Indigenous women are drastically over represented in the ACT prison system. Indigenous women comprise around 1.7% of the ACT women population, yet Indigenous women make up 39% of women detainees in the AMC.
- Women living in the ACT are less likely to easily access a doctor or health service compared to other states and territories.
- Almost a third of young ACT women (15-19 years) report psychological distress, this is more than double the rate for young ACT men.
- Of the 506 hospitalisations reported for self-harm in 2015-16 76% were women.
What Canberra women tell us
- 42% of ACT women rate their physical health as fair, poor or very poor.
- The top 3 barriers to health services for ACT women are affordability, appointment availability and wait times.
- The top 3 barriers to health services for younger ACT women living with chronic diseases are bad experiences, limited service availability and affordability.
- 71% of younger ACT women living with chronic disease rate their mental health as fair, poor or very poor.
- 67% of women exiting prison in the ACT have no housing to exit to.
- 62% of LGBQ women cis and trans women in the ACT have experienced domestic, family or sexual violence.
- In relation to women’s sexual and reproductive health needs, affordability is an issue for many ACT women.
- Women’s use of ACT’s public places and spaces and public transport is reduced when they feel unsafe in spaces because they are poorly lit, are isolated or where there are areas of entrapment.
