“Why Should 70% of Women Have Anemia in India?” Can Philanthropy Close The Women’s Health Gap?

Key takeaways:

• A trillion-dollar opportunity — closing the women’s health gap could add $1 trillion a year to the global economy by 2040, according to research by the McKinsey Health Institute and the World Economic Forum.
• A research blind spot — decades of healthcare research have focused mostly on men, leaving conditions such as breast and ovarian cancer, and the natural changes in a woman’s body, understudied.
• The power of women’s voice and networks — from her time leading ASSOCHAM to healthcare campaigns, Dr. Piramal points to women supporting and uplifting each other as central to real progress.

Women spend 25% more of their lives in poor health than men, according to research by the McKinsey Health Institute and the World Economic Forum. Closing this gap, the research estimates, could add $1 trillion to the global economy every year by 2040.

Dr. Swati Piramal, Chairperson of the Piramal Group and Director of the Piramal Foundation, has spent several years working to improve equitable health access for women, particularly those from marginalized communities.

The Research Gap in Women’s Health

She pointed to an observation from Melinda Gates that resonates with her own experience in the field — that women's voices are largely absent from healthcare because research so rarely addresses their specific needs. As she put it: "Healthcare research is done mostly on men, and it is not done on women and children. So many of the diseases that affect women — breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and so on — very little research was done. And the great fluxes that a woman has in her body — not studied at all."

Dr. Piramal has been a leading force in healthcare innovation and public health in India, bringing together her expertise as a physician, scientist, entrepreneur and philanthropist. Over the past three decades, she has championed research-led healthcare and discovery programmes that have contributed to more than 200 patents and founded the Gopikrishna Piramal Memorial Hospital in Mumbai. She has led nationwide awareness and prevention campaigns on diseases such as polio, tuberculosis, malaria, osteoporosis and diabetes, and through Piramal Swasthya has advanced technology-enabled healthcare services for underserved communities — consistently promoting preventive care, healthcare access and equitable health outcomes.

Why Women Put Themselves Last

Speaking to EdelGive Foundation CEO Naghma Mulla on the podcast Give It A Go, Dr. Piramal asked, “Why should 70% of women have anemia in India? Why should mental health affect women more than men? I think the past asked these questions and, of course, you have to look at the future and see how you can use technology, how you can use communication, how you can use public health, how you can use sheer methods of improving and changing things on the ground.”

Dr. Piramal pointed out that women are often conditioned to de-prioritize their own health as part of caring for others. In her work, she says, she often comes across women who pay less importance to themselves — asked if they’ve had their blood tests done, the women say they haven’t, though their husbands have. “They give up for their families. They give up for their children. They give up even nutrition for their children and for their husbands, but they don’t look after themselves,” she said.

The way to address this, she believes, is by giving women more voice and a bigger audience.

Leadership As A Catalyst

Dr. Piramal was the first woman President of The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM). She describes her tenure as “a kind of mini revolution,” since no apex chamber of commerce had previously had a woman president. She appointed women to lead all 100 of the chamber’s committees, spanning sectors from highways and banking to nuclear energy, iron and steel. Her time in office coincided with a period when India’s growth was running at around 9%, and gave her the opportunity to meet nearly 40 heads of state, including President Obama. But her most important realization, she says, was that “women did not have a voice — in politics, healthcare or the media,” which convinced her that creating and amplifying that voice was essential.

She has often emphasized that women need a greater voice in decisions affecting their homes, children and families. Long before mental health entered mainstream public discourse, she advocated for greater awareness of its impact on women and pushed to bring the issue into public and policy conversations.

The Power of Women’s Networks and Community

She sees a powerful example of this in the Indian women’s cricket team, describing how the players looked out for one another on the field, picking teammates up when they struggled. “I think women need that uplift. They need that voice. They need that sangat of women doing things for each other,” she said. “So I think we need that sense of community. We need to have that positive upliftment of women in our country.”

Dr. Piramal believes women network far more effectively than men, who she says tend to prefer doing things on their own. As ASSOCHAM President, she would call on her network of banker friends before meeting the Reserve Bank Governor and get instant guidance — an example, she says, of how community and “doing things together” makes philanthropy work. She points to a compassion-training programme for doctors, run with Emory University, as another example: assumptions that doctors are naturally compassionate aren’t always true, so she developed a cognitive-based compassion training now taught at her alma mater, with funding often coming from other women in her network. “That’s the way we do things — in a network,” she said.

Mr. Ajay Piramal added that women’s leadership can be a powerful catalyst for change, pointing to his daughter Nandini Piramal’s role as Chairperson of the Group’s pharmaceutical business as an example of the impact women can have in positions of responsibility. He noted that women perform on par with men when given equal opportunities, and highlighted the importance of economic empowerment through initiatives such as the Karuna Fellowship, which helps women from disadvantaged backgrounds build skills, livelihoods and confidence to participate more fully in society.

Perhaps the strongest case for closing the women’s health gap lies beyond healthcare itself. Research suggests that addressing disparities in women’s health could have an impact equivalent to enabling 137 million more women to access full-time employment by 2040 — helping lift families out of poverty, strengthening communities and unlocking significant economic growth. Realizing this potential, however, will require sustained investment in research, better care delivery and, critically, more comprehensive data on women’s health.

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