Reimagining Women’s Health: From Recognition to System Change
Topic : Inequalities Type : Report
ABHI has published its report from the Women’s Health Summit 2026, offering a compelling overview of the systemic inequalities women face in healthcare and setting out the case for rebalancing the health and life sciences ecosystems.
The report highlights how the current healthcare system too often fails to fully “see” women. Symptoms are frequently dismissed, conditions normalised, and the evidence base remains incomplete. Care pathways are often built on assumptions that do not adequately reflect women’s biology or lived experience, leading to gaps in diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes.
Key themes from the report:
- Women’s health requires a fundamental scientific and systemic shift to rebalance the health ecosystem.
- Women are systematically underserved, with male biology historically treated as the default across research, diagnosis, treatment, and service design.
- Women’s health must be addressed holistically across the entire healthcare system, rather than being limited to reproductive health.
- Women frequently experience delayed diagnosis, fragmented care, and prolonged treatment pathways.
Across the Summit’s four pillars, clinical transformation, innovation, research and investment, and research and data, a clear conclusion emerged: the system must be rebalanced to better reflect both human biology and women’s lived experience.
Women’s health is not a marginal issue; it is a system-wide challenge spanning clinical practice, research, workforce policy, prevention, public health, healthcare delivery, and economic growth. Addressing it requires coordinated action from across the ecosystem, including clinicians, researchers, policymakers, innovators, educators, investors, regulators and patients.
The report reinforces the importance of ABHI’s continued leadership in driving women’s health reform. It calls on government, the NHS, industry, research funders, and educators to recognise women’s health as a whole-system priority. This will require a fundamental rebalancing of healthcare, research, and life sciences around a more accurate understanding of biological sex and women’s lived experience.
These findings will continue to inform ABHI’s engagement with key stakeholders, supporting advocacy efforts to advance women’s health and promote greater equity across the health and life sciences ecosystem.
Read the full report below.
