Declining Life Expectancies Show Why Women's Health Should be a Priority

Just in case you needed more convincing that women’s health needs to be a national priority: A recent study out of the University of Washington found that in 737 U.S. Counties, women’s life expectancies declined over the past decade. You read that right. In large sections of the country, women are dying younger than they did 10 years ago. This marks the largest decline in life expectancy in the U.S. since the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. While this report is undoubtedly shocking, the fact that women in this country routinely suffer poor health outcomes isn’t news. Our own Women’s Health Report Card, released last December, showed that the nation is falling far short of meeting women’s health needs, with one in five women lacking health insurance and rates of obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes rising.

This is why it’s so important that we work not only to protect the existing health care programs that women rely on to stay healthy, such as Medicaid and Medicare, but also improve women’s health care in order to reverse these trends. The new health care law makes great strides towards improving the availability, affordability, and quality of health care for women. In addition to insuring 15 million women, the law places a special emphasis on preventive care, which is important considering that public health experts believe preventable conditions such as high blood pressure, obesity, and smoking related health problems played a major role in the decline of life expectancies in many counties. For example, the law requires all new health care plans to cover preventive services such as mammograms, blood pressure screenings, and smoking cessation counseling with no co payments.

So while these new statistics are disturbing, let’s hope that they serve as a reminder of how important affordable, high quality health care is to women and that they motivate us to continue to fight for the health care programs that matter most to women across the country.