Towards Gender-Sensitive Health Reporting: Lessons from Belgium’s Women’s Health Report
Abstract
In recent years, there has been growing public attention to women’s health and increasing awareness of its historic marginalization in health research and policy. Despite this progress, comprehensive information on women’s health, understood both as conditions exclusive to women (e.g., endometriosis) and those that affect women differently than men (e.g., cardiovascular diseases), remains insufficient. While health monitoring in Belgium routinely disaggregates data by sex, there is a clear need to move beyond binary comparisons on traditional health topics and adopt a gender-sensitive approach to health reporting. To address this gap, researchers from Sciensano, the Belgian Institute for Public Health, developed a dedicated Women’s Health Report. The objective was to identify and spotlight health issues that are either specific to women or that affect them differently, as well as to map existing knowledge and data gaps. The report revealed significant shortcomings in data availability, such as prevalence rates for endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome, and identified opportunities to improve data collection and use. It also highlighted existing, underutilized data sources on key topics like fertility treatments, abortion, and contraception. These data limitations hinder effective prevention, care, and policy-making, ultimately impacting women’s well-being. One of the key achievements of the report was its success in stimulating public and professional discourse on these issues. The next step is to translate this momentum into tangible scientific and policy actions. In this presentation, we will reflect on the insights gained from the report, discuss the challenges of advancing gender-sensitive health monitoring, and explore strategies for transforming dialogue into actionable public health policy. We want to foster discussions with participants on strategies used in different countries to achieve these goals.
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BibTeX
@article{scohy2026towards,
title = {{Towards Gender-Sensitive Health Reporting: Lessons from Belgium’s Women’s Health Report}},
author = {A Scohy and L Van den Borre and V Gorasso},
journal = {The European Journal of Public Health},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1093/eurpub/ckag169.383},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckag169.383},
note = {CC BY-NC 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Towards Gender-Sensitive Health Reporting: Lessons from Belgium’s Women’s Health Report
AU - A Scohy
AU - L Van den Borre
AU - V Gorasso
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/01
JO - The European Journal of Public Health
DO - 10.1093/eurpub/ckag169.383
UR - https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckag169.383
AB - In recent years, there has been growing public attention to women’s health and increasing awareness of its historic marginalization in health research and policy. Despite this progress, comprehensive information on women’s health, understood both as conditions exclusive to women (e.g., endometriosis) and those that affect women differently than men (e.g., cardiovascular diseases), remains insufficient. While health monitoring in Belgium routinely disaggregates data by sex, there is a clear need to move beyond binary comparisons on traditional health topics and adopt a gender-sensitive approach to health reporting. To address this gap, researchers from Sciensano, the Belgian Institute for Public Health, developed a dedicated Women’s Health Report. The objective was to identify and spotlight health issues that are either specific to women or that affect them differently, as well as to map existing knowledge and data gaps. The report revealed significant shortcomings in data availability, such as prevalence rates for endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome, and identified opportunities to improve data collection and use. It also highlighted existing, underutilized data sources on key topics like fertility treatments, abortion, and contraception. These data limitations hinder effective prevention, care, and policy-making, ultimately impacting women’s well-being. One of the key achievements of the report was its success in stimulating public and professional discourse on these issues. The next step is to translate this momentum into tangible scientific and policy actions. In this presentation, we will reflect on the insights gained from the report, discuss the challenges of advancing gender-sensitive health monitoring, and explore strategies for transforming dialogue into actionable public health policy. We want to foster discussions with participants on strategies used in different countries to achieve these goals.
SN - 1101-1262
SN - 1464-360X
ER -