Hadassah launches Coalition for Women's Health Equity

Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. (HWZOA), announces the launch of the Coalition for Women’s Health Equity, which will work to address inequities in quality of care, funding and support, and gaps in women’s health awareness, according to Hadassah National President Ellen Hershkin.

The inaugural members of the Coalition include:

American Association of University Women

American Heart Association

Black Women’s Health Imperative

Breast Cancer Fund

Institute for Women’s Health and Leadership of Drexel University College of Medicine

Jewish Women International

National Council of Jewish Women

National Organization for Women

National Partnership for Women & Families

National Women’s Political Caucus

Society for Women’s Health Research

Vision 2020

Women Against Alzheimer’s

WomenHeart: The National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease

Hadassah has convened this coalition in response to pervasive gender disparities throughout the healthcare system, with the mission to create a well-coordinated and unified force to advocate for women’s health equity—from prevention and diagnosis to treatment and cure.

Coalition members represent a wide variety of the nation’s most prominent organizations Including those working toward female empowerment, equitable healthcare access, civil rights, and more. Membership in the Coalition is open and will continue to grow.

Women and men present different symptoms for the same diseases and react differently to certain drugs, medical devices, and treatments. Gender disparities in medicine—among research subjects, and in health care access and delivery—put women at risk for misdiagnoses, ineffective treatments and compromised care.

Heart disease, for example, is the number one killer of women, and yet only one third of cardiac research subjects are women. Studies also show that medical providers are more likely to ascribe women’s pain symptoms to stress or psychological causes, and men’s symptoms to physical or neurological conditions.

A lack of women’s health equity not only impacts the well-being of the American woman now, but for generations to come. The Coalition for Women’s Health Equity will publicly promote policies in support of gender equity in medical prevention, research and treatment, and raise awareness about how that lack of equity adversely affects women and families throughout the United States

For more information, visit http://www.hadassah.org.