Women as They Age: Addressing the Next Inequity Frontier

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.

Date

Jan 16 - Jan 19, 2024

Session no.

S836-01

Contact

Mary Helen Pombo

Director, Health

Charlotte Müer

Program Manager, Health, Salzburg Global Seminar, Austria

Content overview

PROGRAM INFORMATION PROGRAM GOALS Co-Curators Participants Partners

PROGRAM INFORMATION

PROGRAM FORMAT

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.

BENEFITS

Connect to a living, international community of outstanding leaders committed to investments for health, well-being, and climate resilience.
Take inspiration and learnings from across the globe and gain foresight.
Develop relationships for coalition building across organizational, professional, and national boundaries.
Have open access to a vast network of Salzburg Global Fellows working on similar pursuits.
Share promising practices and expertise, and draw on the group’s collective intelligence and experience to tackle challenges you face and leverage important opportunities.
Receive and offer peer mentoring on ways to incubate, replicate, adapt, and scale good practices.
Engage in a candid, safe, and open exchange with peers under the Chatham House Rule.
Enjoy time and space to disconnect and reflect from a wider ecosystem perspective.

PARTICIPANT PROFILE

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:

Contribute to the group’s collective intelligence.
Engage in a candid, safe and open exchange with peers, adhering to the Chatham House Rules.
Disconnect from cell phones and other business during discussion times.
Commit to attending the full program in person from January 16-19, 2024.
Mentor peers on ways to incubate, replicate, adapt, and scale strategies.

KEY QUESTIONS

Participants will delve into the following questions:

How could participants reimagine a future for women to age productively, successfully, and healthily? Where are the opportunities for communities and health systems to hasten progress?
How do women’s health inequalities and inequities manifest around the world? What are the toughest barriers to healthy aging for women?
What beneficial strategies, policies, and innovations are emerging around the world as promising and best practices?
What immediate opportunities exist for partnerships and collaborations across sectors, regions, and nations? What needs and what can be created?
In what ways can women better and fuller participate in decision making in matters most important to them including when and as they age? What productive coalitions of what organizations could accelerate progress?

PROGRAM GOALS

This program seeks to:

Exchange fresh insights, promising strategies, policy opportunities, and initiatives.
Build a pragmatic network of experts, advocates, and activists around the world.
Consider appropriate communication strategies and channels.
Develop recommendations and an action plan.