I had the great pleasure of sitting down with Melinda French Gates to discuss her exciting expanded focus and additional funding for women’s health. With this additional $215 million in funding, that brings her commitment to women’s health over the past two years to over $600 million dollars. And part of this new focus is midlife and menopause.
Women have higher levels of illness and disability than men at nearly every age, yet women’s health has been systemically overlooked: for every dollar the world invests in medical research and innovation, just five cents goes to women’s health and less that 1% of aging research focuses on menopause. It’s hard to get past the shock of it to the outrage. (Not impossible, though!).
We spoke about the research and care women need, the barriers they face, and what she hopes to achieve with this new funding initiative. There is even a $10 million grant for The Menopause Society to scale up training for healthcare professionals and target outreach. Additional grants will be announced later this year.
I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did.
