Enabling Agency in Health Care

A woman of colour with her daughter smile at the camera
Photo by Jhon David on Unsplash

As we recognise UN’s International Women’s Day on Friday 8 March, we are thrilled to launch our latest policy brief: Enabling Agency in Health Care.  

This brief outlines and addresses factors that impact women’s agency and autonomy in accessing health care.  

Agency, as we define it, is when people have resources and freedom to make decisions and act in ways that influence their lives.  

In the realm of health care, many women face barriers to exercising agency on both an interpersonal and institutional level.  

This brief provides an overview of these barriers, along with the key dimensions of women’s agency in health care. It encourages clinicians, policymakers and governments to commit to giving women and girls the resources and power necessary to be equal partners in making decisions about their health care.   

This is especially relevant to the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day, ‘Count Her In: Invest in Women. Accelerate Progress’.  

As we know, investing funds in platforms that elevate women’s voices enable agency and strengthen health outcomes for all. Our new brief informs understanding about the barriers and enablers to this process.    

Read and share the full brief online.  

Key messages
Agency is when people have the freedom and resources to make decisions and act in ways that influence their lives.
Read Policy Brief
Key messages
Women’s agency in health care has 4 main dimensions: decision-making power, access to information, freedom of movement and the promotion of gender equitable attitudes.
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Key messages
Women face a range of interpersonal and institutional barriers that restrict their agency, including in important decision-making contexts.
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Key messages
Using an intersectional gendered lens is important to understand how different cohorts of women have their agency restricted.
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Key messages
Greater focus must be placed on giving women the resources, platforms and power to exercise agency to access their desired health care and embed gender-responsive approaches to health and prevention in research and policy.
Read Policy Brief
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