What is the state of health of women in South America, according to an important indicator

At the end of September, a new international index was launched which claims to be the first of its kind, the Global Women’s Health Index (GWHI) 2020.. This index, produced by the American medical technology company Hologic in association with the Gallup World Poll (which conducts field surveys), is the first global indicator that analyzes the health status of women in 116 countries, according to five dimensions: preventive care; basic needs; safety and health advice; individual health; and emotional health.

To understand how the index works, we are going to break down a specific case. With 69 points on a scale of 1 to 100, Taiwanese women have the best health in the world. This implies values ​​of more than 80 points in 4 of the 5 dimensions. For example, in the dimension of emotional health (89 out of 100), only 5% of Taiwanese women felt sadness at some point on the eve of the survey (compared to 73% of Peruvians for example, the least country well rated by this index); in the dimension of health and safety opinions (85 points), 85% of Taiwanese women said they felt safe walking alone at night; In the third dimension, that of basic needs (93 points), only 6% had problems at one time or another in the last 12 months in finding accommodation.

Concerning the individual health dimension (85 out of 100), only 12% of Taiwanese women said they had a health problem and 18% said they had felt some kind of pain the day before the survey (At the other extreme are the Iraqis, with 66%). What then prevents the average health of Taiwanese women from exceeding 80 points? Apparently, they are reluctant to see a doctor, which is measured by the last dimension, that of preventive care (24 points out of 100): only 35% of them have had their blood pressure checked in the past year (53% of the Austrians, in second place, have done so) and less than 11% have been tested for sexually transmitted diseases.

Now that we’ve seen how it works, let’s put the GWHI in the South American context to see which countries are measuring the best and the worst in this new index.

Uruguay (39th). It is the best country in Latin America in terms of women’s health status. He got 58 points, the same score as Spain, Italy and Croatia. Its strength lies in the dimension of preventive care, where it obtained the 9th position in the world and the same score as the United States, Chile and South Korea (71% of Uruguayans, for example, had their blood pressure checked at least once in the last 12 months). But performance stagnated in the dimension of emotional health, where Uruguayan women obtained the 63rd position in the world: 55% of them admitted to having felt worried the day before the survey, 47% of stress and 28 % sadness.

Chile and Paraguay (59th and 62nd). For their health, Chilean and Paraguayan women obtained the same score: 52. Chile obtained a good overall position (12 °) for its preventive care (like Uruguay), but obtained a bad position (109 °) in the dimension which measures the opinion of women on the quality of health and of safety: Only 38% of Chilean women have a positive opinion of the quality of health in their country and 30% feel safe when they walk alone at night. The same goes for Paraguayan women: a good ratio of preventive care (25th overall), but a low opinion of their own health and safety system (108th).

Argentina (65th). Our country ranks third in South America in this index. They got 51 points, one behind Chile and Paraguay. But unlike these two countries, in the Argentinian case there does not seem to be a tendency to extremes. Its best dimension is that of preventive care (24th in the world) and the worst is that of emotional health (89th); in the middle, he was ranked 57th in the basic needs dimension, 64th in individual health and 88th in opinion on the health and safety system. Although they do not show a tendency to extremes, it is worth focusing on some answers: the day before the survey, 43% of Argentinian women admitted to having felt physical pain and 61% said they were worried. , while 40% admitted having struggled to find money to feed themselves or their families in the past year.

Colombia and Brazil (95th and 97th). These two countries, the most populous in South America, obtained 44 points, the same score as El Salvador, Cameroon and Turkey.. In the case of Colombia, we are already beginning to observe a decrease in the dimension of preventive care (76 °) compared to previous countries, which oscillated between 12th and 25th position. The best dimension of Colombian women is individual health (52 °): only 20% admitted having health problems and 36% having felt physical pain the day before the interview (better percentages than Uruguayan, Chilean or Argentinian women ).

Uruguay is the best country in Latin America in terms of women’s health status

At the other extreme is the emotional health of Colombian women (96%), of which 58% say they have experienced worry and 53% stress.. As for Brazil, its best dimension is that of basic needs (54 °), which in regional terms implies the best position after Chile and Uruguay, but at the other extreme reflects the mistrust of Brazilian women for their system. of health (112 °): only 32% of them consider it of quality and less than 1 in 2 think the same about the care of pregnant women.

Bolivia (106 °). In its general average, Bolivia obtained 42 points, the same value as Tunisia and Mali. Bolivians have very good individual health (72 points), just like Colombians and Venezuelans: only 18% of Bolivians admit to having a health problem. But although they have an acceptable score on their basic needs, which equates them to Indonesian and Ukrainian women, the assessment of Bolivian women on their health system is very low: only 29% consider that they have a system. health and the 31% consider the care received by pregnant women to be satisfactory (overall, only Gabon, Peru and Venezuela obtained a lower score in this dimension).

Ecuador (109th), Venezuela (113th) and Peru (114th). We reach the bottom 3 countries of South America in this index, which are also among the bottom 6 in the world according to their rating. Ecuador obtained 40 points in total. Its best dimension is individual health (same score as Argentina and Chile): only 17% of Ecuadorian women declared having a health problem. But the flip side of this data are very high percentages of worry (68%), stress (67%) and sadness (47%). Venezuela, penultimate in the standings, obtained 37 points, the same as Iraq. The basic needs of Venezuelan women are the highest in the region: 78% said they had problems feeding themselves in the past year and almost one in two women said they had problems finding decent housing in the country. during the same period. However, and as we have already seen in other cases, Venezuelan women have a good state of health (only 22% say they have a problem), but a very bad opinion of their health system (only 20% l ‘approve). Peru, with 36 points, was the country with the worst score of the entire sample. Although in most dimensions their scores do not vary that much from Venezuela’s, the difference is in individual health (almost half of Peruvian women, 47%, said they experienced some sort of physical pain the day before investigation) and emotional. (7 out of 10 felt worried).

What does the analysis of the region in the GWHI leave us? The report concludes that the global average for women’s health status is 54 out of 100 points, showing that there is still a long way to go. But South America’s average is 10 points below the world average and 20 points behind Oceania, the region with the best score. Despite some good isolated results, in fact South America is the region of the world where women’s health is the poorest and where they will certainly have the most difficulty reversing it.

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