Black mothers are 3x more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes. The CDC has documented a mortality rate of 50.3 per 100K for Black women versus 14.5 for white women. Even as the national average has improved, Black maternal deaths remain significantly higher, widening the gap even further.
Women in the U.S. spend $15B more *annually* on healthcare than men, have more medical visits, and $8.8B more prescription drug costs than men. Women are paying more because they are believed less, and therefore not getting the care they need.
There are more than 50 women's health conditions with no dedicated codes to bill insurance. There are several organizations working hard to surface these inequities and address them. Join organizations like Women's Health Advocates (WHA) and 51& to help change that. open.substack.com/pub/natalieh...
Insurers profit from churn while patients pay with worse health. Patients need records that follow them across payers — will insurers and policymakers step up, or will continuity of care remain a patient problem? open.substack.com/pub/natalieh...
Collaboration between data science and UX is not optional if we want solutions that truly fit into people’s real-world context. Together, we envisioned a solution designed to augment how B2B sales reps navigate their day. The cFull case study on Substack - nataliehanson.substack.com/publish/post...
Artificial intelligence is radically changing the way software is designed and built. It's making old tools obsolete, altering how people work, and evolving how they collaborate. What remains of how we worked in the past? Read the full case study - nataliehanson.substack.com/publish/post...
Women are diagnosed several years later than men for hundreds of different conditions, even though men have the tendency to go to the doctor later. Closing the diagnosis gap will take research, training, and policy changes - most of all, it will take all of us refusing to accept the status quo.
Women are more likely to be misdiagnosed, or to receive a mental health diagnosis instead of a biomedical one, and for their pain to be under-treated. This cascades into later diagnoses, disease progression, and preventable complications.
There are very few places more dangerous for women under 55 than the Emergency Room if they are having a heart attack. The symptoms are different. Discharges are more frequent. And as a result, women's mortality rate following a heart attack is significantly worse. Learn more on my Substack.
You might enjoy the newsletter from UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center - greatergood.berkeley.edu.
Cardiovascular disease is the number #1 killer of women, taking more than 430K women’s lives in 2023. High blood pressure, diabetes, etc. increase risk. Black women carry the heaviest burden, with nearly 59% living with some form of CVD. Demand preventive heart care for you and the women you love! ❤️
On average, US patients get 18 minutes with their doctor - so it's no surprise that patients turn to social media to get their health questions answered. Unfortunately, recent research shows that social media content is often incorrect or has serious conflicts of interest. Learn more on my Substack.
Many women’s health companies start with a direct-to-consumer (DTC) model. Unfortunately, the platforms they rely on to reach consumers make that critical market access much harder than it needs to be; 95% of women’s health creators surveyed in 2024-25 reported censorship on social media.
Diagnostics is one of the most successful investment areas in women’s health right now. It makes sense - we need a meaningful body of data about how female bodies work, and better diagnostics is key step in that journey. nataliehanson.substack.com/p/better-dia...
It has been 181 years since the speculum was invented, and it’s outrageous that basic preventive care still causes so much pain & distress that women avoid it altogether. But there are exciting innovations on the way in this space! Learn more - nataliehanson.substack.com/p/standard-c...
Today, only about 25% of clinical trials sex-disaggregate research data; researchers never fully analyze whether the treatment behaves differently in male and female bodies, even when both are included as participants. Learn more in my Substack post -
nataliehanson.substack.com/p/only-25-of...
Women then experience significantly more adverse drug events than men; this is what happens when an entire sex is treated as an afterthought in the research and development process for bringing new drugs to market. Learn more in my Substack post, here - nataliehanson.substack.com/p/the-future....
The Chicago Women's Health Collective recently hosted our first dinner, bringing together folks who care deeply about the future of women’s health. I left feeling energized more committed than ever to shaping an ecosystem where women’s health is treated as essential infrastructure, not a niche.
VC investment in women’s health has grown more than 50% in recent years - 3x growth since 2020! - crossing into the multi‑billion‑dollar range. But it remains a small slice of overall healthcare investment funding.
Women are a good investment. Companies with more women in leadership and funds that back women founders, can outperform on revenue growth and ROI. If you care about returns and impact, investing in women shouldn’t be a side bet - it should be core strategy.
When adoption fails, it’s rarely about the technology or launch plans - it’s almost always about people. Real ROI comes from understanding unmet needs, creating usable experiences, and establishing the right supports for behavior change.
We’ve built an ecosystem where 5% (or less) of the disease burden associated with women’s health attracts a disproportionate share of attention. If we want better outcomes for women over their lifetimes, we have to create and fund solutions that reflect the full spectrum of women’s health needs.
When you look at conditions that uniquely, differently, or disproportionately affect women, you start to see a very different picture of unmet need and market potential for women's health. Unlocking even a fraction of the market represents a $100B+ opportunity for founders and investors.
The lack of basic science on women’s bodies is a risk as the interest in LLMs for healthcare continues to grow. If not addressed, the lack of data on female bodies will affect our ability to use AI for innovation and improved health outcomes in the long run.
A depiction of the women's health ecosystem, from public policy, to funding / valuation, to scientific research, to sales & marketing, to disease areas, to care delivery, to payers, and finally social & economic outcomes.
I’m working on a series of posts about women’s health and I’d love your input. I want to celebrate what the industry is doing as it matures, while raising awareness with women about what’s at stake. What am I missing? What have you read that surprised you – and what do you still want to know?
Whoa - isn’t nature amazing?!
Pearl Cleage quote from Jane Fonda.
Some hopeful words via @huffpost.com as the week comes to a close - “… on the other side of the conflagration, there will still be love.”
"When a civilization is limited to work that produces profit, we don’t just lose the artistry and texture of everyday life. We distance ourselves from the values of care and generosity — and the simple but profound belief that what happens to one of us affects all of us."
@conriley.bsky.social inspiration for your books. 🥰
Absolutely smitten with this picture. 😍