Who is our health care system made for?

To bring this topic justice, we combined the results of different studies to show the connectedness between gender norms and stereotypes in medical training and diagnosis as well as the unequal inclusion in medical studies and clinical trials, leading up to a delayed or false diagnosis, overdose in medication and ultimately more years lived in sickness.

The colors used throughout the project are adapted from those of the female empowerment movement and represent strength, but also serve as a warning color. Furthermore, we deliberately wanted to distance ourselves from the traditional blue and pink color scheme so not to reinforce current gender stereotypes.

With uncovering all the gender related inequalities of the health care system one thing becomes undeniably clear: the lack of research & tailored treatment options for female bodies. 

With the 3 pill boxes we wanted to create a playful and engaging canvas to highlight the absence and misinformation in relation to womens* health care through 3 disease case studies. 

While there are plenty of diseases which affect female bodies in a different or more severe way, we have chosen cardiovascular disease and stroke for their high prevalence and resulting disease burden and Fibromyalgia due to its disproportionate effect on womens* health.

The boxes are inspired by common drug packaging, featuring information on the diseases and how they affect and show up in female bodies. On the inside of the box, the audience will find pillcases displaying statistics as well as a package information leaflet to create more awarness of the details, sharing the results of our extensive research.

Health and health care is a deeply personal topic for everyone – a misdiagnosis or mistreatment even more. Over the course of the project we came across stories of friends & family, in which those inequalities were experienced first hand – partly with severe consequences.

Since the poster as well as the physicalization displayed mainly hard facts and data, the interaction should serve as a way to personalize these numbers into stories. The visitors of the GOG were able to sit down and write their experiences (or experiences from someone they know) onto a paper, designed to resemble an Italian prescription form. Even though, we are aware that not everyone feels comfortable opening up about those topics, those stories would help people affected by this inequality to feel seen and reflect. 

Sources:

Bacigalupe A, Martín U. (2021), "Gender inequalities in depression/anxiety and the consumption of psychotropic drugs: Are we medicalising women's mental health?" Scand J Public Health.

Criado Perez, Caroline, Invisible Women (2019)

Plataforma SINC (2008), “Medical Textbooks Use White Heterosexual Men As A “Universal Model”, ScienceDaily

Sun TY, Hardin J, Nieva HR, Natarajan K, Cheng RF, Ryan P, Elhadad N. (2023), "Large-scale characterization of gender differences in diagnosis prevalence and time to diagnosis."