Foundations in Gender Equity in Health Data Series: A Starting Point for Being Attentive to Gender
One of the first projects the Gender Equity Unit embarked on as a team in early 2022 was what we call the Foundation Series. The series of seven seminars brought together esteemed speakers and scientific content, geared towards driving gender equity in health data. I was proud of this series because it laid the baseline for those working with health data to really understand why considering gender matters, how ignoring gender factors can be detrimental to a community’s health, and how we can use gender data to identify health inequity and make real change in health programming and policy.
Data that are disaggregated by sex and reflect societal gender issues such as roles, relations, and inequalities, have the power to help identify health disparities, improve health data systems, and influence key policy decision-making in countries and regions. Gender equitable data creates opportunities to minimize biases that may incompletely inform health policy by accounting for stereotypes, social roles and norms, and other cultural factors.
Our second seminar, “Key Ingredients in Driving Gender Equity in Health Data,” was one of my favorites of the series because I had the pleasure of moderating a panel with speakers from the Gender Health Hub, Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit, and the World Bank Africa to discuss the five key ingredients for driving gender equity. We discussed how to apply these ingredients to drive gender equity in health data collection and use by studying learnings from gender equity efforts in four areas: gender-based violence, femicide, COVID-19, and non-communicable diseases.
Give it a watch and let me know what you think!
