The cost of being ill

The lack of knowledge about the female body costs the EU €750 billion every year. Medical research has traditionally been conducted on men, while women’s bodies develop illness differently.

For the campaign “The costs of being ill” by the Voices for Women foundation, Wilke Geurds (visual anthropologist, documentary maker and photographer) photographs and interviews 12 women from across the Netherlands about their years long searches and unexplained health complaints.

Symptoms that specialists and doctors were sometimes unable to name for a long time, or still cannot diagnose because of a major gap in medical knowledge. Complaints that, research shows, are still too often wrongly dismissed as psychological. As a result, women feel unheard and regularly have to call in sick, or even stop working, are unable to study or support their families, and undergo surgery after surgery. Family and friends who do not understand why there is still no diagnosis. For years, these women grope in the dark for one central question: what is wrong with me?

Voices for Women has been fighting for years and speaking out for women with unexplained health complaints. This can and must be done differently. They advocate for more research into sex differences, so that women receive the right treatments and diagnoses, and they raise awareness that the female body becomes ill in different ways.

This medical knowledge gap not only costs lives and causes great suffering, but also costs society billions, research shows. Who are the women behind this suffering, and what are the economic consequences?

Objective

With this campaign, we aim to raise awareness of the major economic impact of the lack of knowledge about the female body. This goes beyond personal suffering and affects society as a whole, including politics, insurers, employers and the general public. We aim for this awareness to lead to political investment in medical research into the female body. Earlier research, presented to EU member states in December 2023 where Voices for Women was also a speaker (watch back here), showed that highlighting the costs helps this social issue to be taken more seriously. By making the financial and societal costs visible, we hope to move this urgent problem higher up the agenda and stimulate real action.

Research by the McKinsey Health Institute shows that for every dollar invested in women’s health, an estimated three dollars in global economic growth can be expected. Investing in women’s health not only leads to economic growth, but also reduces suffering for women themselves and those around them.

As long as there is still insufficient research into the female body, we want to inform women about our reporting point where they can anonymously share their patient stories. These stories are analysed and, in consultation, shared and used to demonstrate that more research is necessary.

Click here for the credits and more information about the creators.