The outsized impact of opioids on women signals a much larger problem of poorer health and poorer access to care that make women more susceptible to addiction and, once addicted, more likely to die as a result. And what affects women affects families. In most American homes, women are the primary caregivers and their well-being usually determines the well-being and the future of our children. Evidence of this abounds in hospital neonatal units across the country, where the number of infants born with symptoms of opioid addiction increased five-fold from 2000 to 2012 — a trend that will exact a price in the form of higher medical costs and social burdens for decades to come.

Referrals dropped by 54 percent after a patient died at the hands of a female surgeon, but when it was a male surgeon whose patient died, there was only a small stagnation in the referrals the surgeon received from the doctor. What’s more, a good patient outcome (i.e., an unanticipated survival) led doctors to become more optimistic about a male surgeon’s ability, again using referral volumes after a surgery as the proxy for the doctors’ views of the surgeons’ talent. The same wasn’t true for female doctors.

The military doesn’t just urge women, it requires them—especially if they want to succeed—to view themselves on the same playing field as their male counterparts. They are also expected to behave and perform in traditionally masculine ways—demonstrating strength, displaying confidence in their abilities, expecting to be judged on their merits and performance, and taking on levels of authority and responsibility that few women get to experience. The uniform and grooming standards work to downplay their physical female characteristics. Additionally, the expectation—explicit or implicit—is that they also downplay other attributes that are traditionally considered feminine, such as open displays of emotion.

“We have to be aware that we are underrepresenting women,” she says. “When we look for sources, we have to pay more attention to the women whose names are on the studies.”

Opening up combat jobs to women in the military is bringing a greater need for resources to treat the trauma and mental health challenges that echo after service. But the National Institutes of Health has found women veterans underutilize VA health care compared with men. It says many report delaying getting care, and that when they do receive treatment, it’s inadequate. Other women aren’t seeking help at all, according to the government researchers. A group of nonprofits is testing a new outreach program in Los Angeles County, dubbed Women Vets on Point, which aims to overcome the barriers keeping female veterans from connecting with services.

For patients, the stereotype runs thus: men are less aware of health problems than women, less attuned to symptoms and they don’t visit the doctor as often as women. In other words, men are silent stoics; women hysterical hypochondriacs. There is evidence for this, to an extent – government statistics published in 2010 showed that women were more likely than men to say they were in poor health, but less likely to die over the following five years.

Medical equipment and healthcare products are designed mostly by men, and in many cases for men – surgical tools, for instance, designed for larger hands to operate. While striving for significant advances in medicine we’re failing to address some basic human considerations, often in flagrant disregard of the field’s heavy balance of women. It’s a systemic problem requiring women to adapt. So despite the fact that healthcare is a great sector for women to enter we hear ongoing complaints. The misfit problem may get worse before it gets better.

Each year in the United States, about 700 to 1,200 women die from pregnancy or childbirth complications, and black women...are about three to four times more likely to die of pregnancy or delivery complications than white women.

According to a new study from PHI, a national research and consulting organization focused on direct care, the direct care workforce struggles with significant racial and gender disparities. Though women of color make up nearly one in two direct care workers, they experience higher poverty rates and rely more on public assistance than white women and men of all races in their field.

A 2015 study published by the American Psychological Association asked 327 female veterans in Southern California about their experiences with sexual trauma. They divided the respondents into two groups — those who served before the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001, and those in uniform afterward. Nearly half of those in the earlier group reported sexual contact against their will during their military service. In the later group, reports of unwanted sexual contact dropped to 30 percent.

The goal was to put knowledge and power—and, ultimately, responsibility—in the hands of local people.

“We need to raise awareness of the wide variety of roles in the profession, and make sure our message is reaching men’s ears.”