The AMA has published a statement on women’s healthcare, acknowledging the importance of data and digital health as significant to the equitable delivery of care.
The 2025 position statement says accurate and comprehensive data, sound research, and ongoing evaluation is essential for effective policy, planning, and service delivery for women.
“The lack of evidence about the effectiveness of medical interventions in women can result in withholding treatments from women that may be beneficial or exposing them to treatments that are suboptimal or even harmful.
“The omission of sex, gender, and sexual orientation in studies reinforces the unintended notion that these concepts are irrelevant to health research.
“Pregnant women have also historically been excluded from research due to unsubstantiated risk perceptions,” the AMA notes.
The AMA says a concerted effort to close “historical gaps in knowledge” – both in understanding differences in disease processes between women and men, and in addressing the lack of gender-sensitive studies, analyses, investigations, and sex-disaggregated data – is needed to provide insight into these disparities.
“This must include a commitment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander data sovereignty and governance, and proper investment in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led research on women’s health”.
It advocates for evidence-based policy, improved access to services and systemic reform to ensure all women can attain the highest standard of physical and mental health.
DIGITAL LITERACY
The AMA says while the world becomes increasingly dependant on digital health systems and platforms to interact with services, those lacking digital health literacy skills face barriers to access them.
This includes women from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, marginalised, rural, remote and regional communities.
They often become dependent on children and male household members to interact with health systems, “which risks creating greater inequity at a time when we collectively hope that these technological advances will improve health outcomes and infrastructure”.
The AMA is supportive of the work underpinned in the Working for Women: A Gender Equality Strategy, and the National Women’s Health Strategy 2020-2030, and advocates that these strategies must be fully implemented to meet their intended goals.
