Women and Girls
Improving women and girls’ access, participation, and leadership in primary healthcare and NCD prevention and control
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Credits
Promote gender equity and drive progress among women and girls
Globally, two out of three women die from an NCD, accounting for 19 million deaths every year. Gender norms and resulting inequalities make women and girls particularly vulnerable to NCDs, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Stigma, low prioritisation of women’s health within families, limited access to financial resources to cover the healthcare costs, competing caring responsibilities, and restrictions to move around freely are but some of the multiple reasons why women and girls face disadvantages in accessing NCD prevention, timely screening, diagnosis and person-centred care across the life course.
Women also face the “triple challenge” of reproductive and maternal health conditions, communicable diseases, and NCDs. For example, NCDs such as hypertension and hyperglycaemia can lead to serious complications during pregnancy, threatening the health and lives of mothers and their babies. Similarly, women living with HIV and AIDS are also at increased risk for developing NCDs due to the effects of these illnesses and/or the medications to treat them. Not least, high rates of NCDs also contribute to poverty, which particularly affects women in indigenous communities, refugees and migrants, and among older women.
NCD Lab Cycle 4: Innovating PHC for women & girls
For its fourth cycle, the NCD Lab welcomed submissions of innovative solutions that transform how NCDs and mental health services are delivered for women and girls by leveraging the primary health care approach. Pregnancy and the postnatal period, for example, offer critical entry points for women to access otherwise unobtainable NCD services. Health initiatives responding to infectious diseases, including COVID-19, HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, provide similar opportunities to screen for NCDs such as cardiovascular disease, which is the highest cause of death for women globally.
Possible submission types
Integrating health services
- Simple and innovative screening tools for NCDs (e.g. blood sugar levels, blood pressure, waist-to-hip ratio) during pregnancy or postnatal care
- Incentivizing mothers with screening and/or treatment for NCDs and mental health when they visit primary care settings for their children’s needs (e.g. immunization)
- Health workforce task shifting (e.g. training community health workers to deliver NCD services to women and girls during pregnancy or postnatal periods)
- Strengthening integrated primary care for women and girls living with multiple NCDs or living with an NCD and a chronic communicable disease such as HIV and AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis
- Mobile clinics, digital health or telemedicine, to facilitate remote consultations and follow-up for women and girls
- Artificial intelligence and other innovative technologies for improving NCD screening, diagnosis, monitoring and/or management for women and girls
- Collaborative care models that integrate medical, nursing, and allied health professionals to provide holistic and comprehensive NCD and mental health care
- Mental health services for girls and women in primary health care settings
Empowering people and communities
- Engagement of women and girls with lived experience in clinical decision-making, self-care and management of their own health and wellbeing
- Culturally-sensitive interventions (e.g. collaborations with local communities to design and tailor interventions to specific cultural contexts)
- Leadership and empowerment of women in their communities through enhanced health literacy
- Peer-led support groups and education programs focused on NCD prevention and management for women and girls
Strengthening multisectoral policy and action for integrated PHC
- E.g. healthy nutrition/obesity/substance use interventions in PHC
Submissions for the 4th cycle of the NCD Lab are now closed. Selected projects will be announced in September 2024.
Women and Girls: Featured NCD Lab projects
SPOTLIGHT
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The Grassroots Innovations on NCDs community is a global network of innovators, researchers, funders, accelerators, policymakers and other key stakeholders committed to scaling up locally-driven solutions to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in communities and countries. The community is open to everyone interested in sourcing and scaling innovative ideas that help tackle NCDs from the bottom up. Join now by providing some more information about yourself, your work and your interests.
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