Accurate gender data is critical for building an effective and equitable response to the COVID-19 pandemic, says a new WHO report launched at this year’s Gender Equality Index conference.
The report, titled “Integrating gender data in health information systems”, explores some of the common challenges countries face in producing and using gender and health data. It also provides recommendations to support national health systems in improving their data quality.
“COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on women and girls. It has exacerbated existing inequalities and placed a disproportionate burden on women, including in health-care settings, and there are still considerable data gaps,” said Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe. “For the simple reason that health care is not gender neutral, WHO continues to urge its 53 Member States to collect and disaggregate COVID-19 data by sex, age and other factors.”
Gender statistics help us to understand how the realities of life differ between the sexes, so that policy and services can be tailored to meet different needs.
Governments use health data gathered, compiled and analysed through health information systems, to make evidence-informed policy decisions for the well-being of their populations. So ensuring that this information has a clear gender component is essential.
Why gender data matters
Gender, along with other factors like age, ethnicity and socioeconomic status, affects people’s health and well-being around the world.
Biological sex and gender norms, roles and relations can influence a person’s vulnerabilities, their access to resources, opportunities and more.
Gender-blind health systems cannot effectively respond to the specific needs of women, men and people with diverse gender identities. Gender data can help identify gaps and develop policies that include everyone’s needs.
Gender differences continue to exist in the workplace, particularly in health care, where women and men are often segregated into different roles and are not paid equally. Although women make up 70% of the health workforce, they hold only 25% of senior roles.
Improving data quality of national health systems
The new report highlights that mainstreaming gender in statistics will require:
- strong leadership and political will for collecting and using gender data;
- a legal framework for gender statistics that provides a clear mandate for sex-disaggregated and gender-related data;
- multisectoral collaboration and action, including cooperation between users and producers of statistics;
- inclusion of emerging areas, such as disability statistics, data on the ageing population and mental health;
- policies and processes within the health system to guide the collection and production of gender data and data on health inequalities.
Countries are encouraged to use this guidance document to facilitate dialogue and collaboration, establish priorities, and provide regulations, as well as advice and training to improve data literacy, advance gender equality and generate better health outcomes for everyone, everywhere.
