What Our Data is Revealing About the Effect of Covid-19 on Women’s Health
Earlier this spring we published this article, on the consequences of Covid-19 on women’s access to essential health services and how digital solutions, like Grace, can help fill the access gap. But digital services do not only serve as a scalable solution to provide women with better health services and unclog a burdened healthcare system, they also allow us to uncover the real needs of women and to develop innovative health services that truly serve HER needs.
We are now a few months into the Covid-19 pandemic and it is still impossible to have a complete overview of the enormous consequences this will have on people’s health and lives, but we do know that some will be hit harder than others.
For the 1.6B girls and women of reproductive age (15–49) living in low- and middle-income countries, the impact of Covid-19 on their future lives, overall health and wellbeing, are going to be long lasting. Earlier this spring The Guttmacher Institute estimated that a mere 10% decrease in sexual and reproductive health service provision during 2020 will have staggering consequences. They estimate that, among many things, it will lead to 15 million unintended pregnancies and an additional 49 million women with an unmet need for contraception. These are consequences that have deep and long lasting effects.
At Grace Health we know that real-time user data is essential in both uncovering and understanding the health challenges that women face, individually and at scale. Through the Grace platform we’ve unfortunately been able to detect signals of the patterns predicted by the Guttmacher Institute.
As part of our work to expand choice for girls and women around their pregnancy options we’re collaborating with Marie Stopes International in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya. The organization provides abortion and family planning services in countries where access is scarce or heavily stigmatised. When a woman inside the Grace chat service expresses that she is either unwillingly pregnant or interested in knowing more about her pregnancy options, Grace instantly confirms her request and then directs her to her local Marie Stopes office for expert assistance.
From March 30th to April 20th, Ghana, one of the countries where Grace Health has reached high usage, faced a complete lockdown in its two largest cities. This is what our data revealed:
Analyzing usage data week-by-week during the spring, we could see a clear spike (+300%) in requests for abortion services mapping exactly to the lockdown period.
These requests increased most (500%) for women aged 28–42 i.e. the women who are most likely married or at least living with a partner. It highlights the still unmet need for modern contraceptives as these pregnancies are unintended.
While this is only a snippet of our data, it clearly indicates that:
- Even shorter lockdown periods have real and long lasting consequences for girls’ and women’s health and lives.
- Digital health services specifically targeting women are, and will increasingly become, essential to give women health consultations on-demand.
- There is still a huge lack of access to contraceptives as well as an unmet demand for reaching women with contraceptives where they are, in a timely manner.
With a platform already used by 700 000 women, we’re using our data to uncover women’s real needs and to design products and services that truly serve HER.
Starting from August, our users in Accra (Ghana) are now able to order contraceptives, pregnancy tests and painkillers for home delivery directly through the Grace chat service and have them delivered to their home. We believe that digital services can leapfrog access to contraception by reducing the need for in-person consultation and by minimizing the time she has to spend on getting the contraceptive she wants.
It is undeniable that digital health services have a far greater chance of effectively uncovering health challenges, especially those faced by women, who are often overlooked by traditional healthcare. They are also better positioned to drive innovation of new and effective health solutions and that is why digital health services must play an integral part in the work to improve healthcare for all.
