Gender Bias: The ‘Invisible’ Barrier to Equitable Healthcare

Gender equality in health means that women and men are on an equal footing to fully exercise their rights and potential to be healthy, contribute to health development, and benefit from outcomes. Achieving gender equality requires concrete measures to eliminate gender inequities.

PAHO / WHO

Healthcare within the UK is not equal across genders, nor is it equitable.

The female health gap in the UK is the largest in the G20. The NHS recognises these inequities and has set itself the goal to address the known inequities in care delivery for the past 10 years. However, as an institution, they are still struggling to achieve these goals.

For care to be equitable it must be person-centred. Person-centric care requires strong communication and relationship building skills, grounded in empathy. If current care is inequitable, it follows that person-centred care is failing to be delivered. 

Why does this matter? Because how care is delivered can directly impact health outcomes. A study conducted by UCLA health provides evidence for this fact. They found significantly lower mortality and hospital readmissions rates amongst patients treated by female physicians compared with patients treated by male physicians. The nature of the treatment itself did not differ. Instead, they hypothesised it was the nature of how care was delivered that was likely to be the cause of the differing outcomes.

In this paper, we argue that deeply rooted cultural and social gender biases act as a barrier to the delivery of person-centric, equitable oncology care in the UK. Inspired by a number of sources which have drawn attention to the cultural and social gender biases that negatively impact the health care experienced by female patients in the UK, we aimed to develop a holistic view of the healthcare system in order to understand the role of gender bias in the delivery of oncology care.