An index looking at women’s health globally found that women’s preventive healthcare is low and ranked countries based on several factors. Austria was the top country in Europe for women’s health, ranking third on a global index, according to a new report. The country initiated an action plan with 40 measures specifically for women’s health in 2017.
Germany, Denmark, Poland, and the Czech Republic were the other EU countries among the top 10 in the world on women’s health. This is the third year that the company Hologic published the Women’s Health Index, a survey conducted with more than 147,000 participants from 143 countries and territories. The data was gathered in 2022 and analysed in 2023.
The index takes into consideration criteria such as access to healthcare, emotional health, and food security. Overall, the report found that women’s health, however, is in a state of emergency, saying “women are no better off today than they were in the first year of the survey, conducted in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic”. A concerning statistic found that one in four women have health problems that keep them from doing normal activities.
Women in the UK reported feeling sadder, angrier and more stressed compared to women in the EU, the survey found. According to the data, 32 per cent of British women reported feeling sad, compared with 26 per cent of women in the EU. Some 39 per cent felt stressed the day prior, while it was 34 per cent for those from.
