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Health inequities have grabbed national and international attention with considerations of race, income, language, geography, and citizenship status worthy of focus. But there’s an unexplored frontier: the health and wellbeing status of women as they age. Health professional education, research, practice, and policy have disadvantaged women as they age. From menopause to senior years, women face persistent gaps in best-practice care whether from a lack of evidence or unfounded clinical assumptions or a mismatch between both.
Even though women represent over 51% of the world’s population they are marginalized when it comes to health care and their individual health throughout their lifetime. The combination of ageism and sexism is exacerbated as women age. As women move from later middle age into their senior years, their health issues, life experiences and circumstances — including changes in marital status and caregiving responsibilities—require a gender-specific approach to medical care, employment arrangements, insurance coverage, and social and behavioral health considerations. The economic disadvantages for women are compounded with age, with more than 35% of women in the US over 65 living below 200% of the poverty line, further compromising access to adequate medical, dental, vision, and mental health services.
Adjustments to inequities in care and services have been slow and incremental, creating further discomfort and harm. In response an effort is needed to build a network to accelerate change in the status of older women by raising awareness of the problem, and by identifying productive avenues to progress in health professions curricula; gender-based research on heart disease, cancers, health, and pain management; social programs to minimize isolation; policies to relieve extreme poverty and cover necessary services; and better pharmacology guidelines and appropriate medical devices.
For over 75 years, the Salzburg Global Seminar programs have assembled experts from around the world to tackle major health and social problems and debunk myths, facile assumptions, and misconceptions to create new action models. To tackle this problem, a Salzburg Global team will collaborate with the Jewish Healthcare Foundation and its operating arm, the Women’s Health Activist Movement Global, to offer an open, international exchange among cross-sector, interdisciplinary experts.
This highly interactive program will bring together 40 participants from across the globe for an online session and a two-and-a-half-day residential program at Rancho Bernardo near San Diego, United States. The program will also seek to initiate an enduring and committed network of leaders who will continue to work together following the in-person gathering.
Participant costs of lodging at the event venue and on-site food will be covered for the duration of the program. Scholarships for travel will be considered upon request.
Program participants will represent a spectrum of perspectives from health care, public health, and social welfare, public and private insurance, employers and workforce, federal and local government; academia and research, communications, technology innovation, advocacy, international development and global health.
Participation is by invitation-only.
The expectations are:
Participants will delve into the following questions:
This program seeks to: