Women Face a Triple Threat in Post-Roe America

On the eve of International Women’s Day, I am reflecting on the harrowing state of women’s health in the U.S. — the richest country in the world is home to life-threatening health outcomes, skyrocketing healthcare costs, and heightened access barriers to basic, routine healthcare. Put simply, women are facing a “triple threat” when it comes to their health in post-Roe America.

Threat #1: A primary care shortage

60% of reproductive-aged women in the U.S. do not have a primary care provider. As a result, women in this country all too often go without or delay essential, preventive care and over-use or misuse speciality care — driving up costs and worsening health outcomes. The pandemic exacerbated these already stark preventive health gaps, with the breast cancer and cervical cancer screening rate declining 25% since the onset of COVID.

Threat #2: A mental health epidemic

Often described as the “second pandemic,” the mental health crisis in America disproportionately affects women who experience anxiety & depression at 2-3X the rate of men — yet are wrongly treated “as small men with different parts” with few sex-specific approaches and insufficient dot connecting between a woman’s mental and physical health.

Threat #3: A reproductive health crisis

Access to quality reproductive healthcare in the U.S. was harrowing pre-Dobbs and is now worsening on a near weekly basis.  In real terms, the U.S. has the highest rate of maternal mortality among industrialized nations, negligible postpartum care — with 50% of deaths happening after a woman leaves a hospital — and disproportionate outcomes based on race and ethnicity. Today in 2023, Black women die at 3X the rate of white women during and post-pregnancy. And now that the Supreme Court has limited a woman’s ability to make decisions about her own body, the reproductive health crisis has reached a fever pitch.

Put these three threats together, and it’s clear we’re at a crossroads in women’s health. The moral and economic imperative to transform our healthcare system for women, families and communities has never been more important.

Investment in women’s health to address the triple threat

To address the triple threat facing women in America, we need innovation and investment in both public and private solutions that can improve quality and expand access. Yet, despite the economic weight of women who control 80% of the $4.3 trillion dollars spent on U.S. healthcare annually, women’s health is radically underfunded — both publicly and privately. Only 1% of healthcare research and innovation dollars go towards female-specific conditions (outside of oncology) and less than 5% of capital invested in digital health startups goes toward companies focused on women’s health. And zooming out broader — looking at female founded companies within and beyond women’s health — the “gender gap” becomes even greater and is getting worse instead of better: in 2022, the percentage of VC dollars invested in female-founded companies decreased from 2.4% to 1.9%.

That’s why we’re especially thrilled to announce a strategic investment from Pivotal Ventures, a Melinda French Gates company, to scale Tia’s new standard of care for women across the US. Tia addresses the “triple threat” facing women by giving women their very first “medical home” that cares for their whole health —physical, mental, and reproductive — and provides continuous, longitudinal care from post-puberty through menopause and beyond. And as a female-founded and led company with a 100% female leadership team and Board of Directors, Tia is helping to forge a new model for women in business and leadership.

Pivotal’s investment in Tia is a reason to be optimistic that change and progress are possible. And at a time when the stakes have never been higher, its support serves as a powerful signal for the broader healthcare and investment communities.