Women’s health care cannot be marginalized or approached piecemeal.
Reproductive health is part and parcel of women’s whole health and they need access to every component from vaccines to birth control to abortion. Women require 100% – caring for whole health means serving all our mental, physical and reproductive health care needs. Although New York is tied for tenth place nationally for reproductive rights, our state law is antiquated and services are limited.
A comprehensive 2015 Health and Well-Being Analysis awarded New York with a C– and 30th out of 50 states. The grade was based on scoring a 9 indicators including heart disease, breast cancer, diabetes, AIDS, and mental health – all of which NY ranked in the bottom half. Living with a disability or disease amasses an enormous emotional, physical and financial strain on women and their families.
Join us for our #PowHerTheVote for Healthy Lives + Reproductive Rights Take Action Hour Thursday, October 13th from 1-2:00PM!
This factsheet is a part of PowHer the Vote, a campaign to ignite and equip New Yorkers to advance women’s issues in the 2016 election.
Ask Your Candidate How can New York State improve women’s whole health and better support women’s access to comprehensive reproductive health care?
Women are affected in New York by the diabetes epidemic.
New York’s grade in the 2015 Health and Well-Being Analysis.
Teen girls cite pregnancy for dropping out of high school.
Women’s Health Snapshot
- Diabetes has become an epidemic that affects 1 in 10 New York women.
- Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in New York, it is also the second leading cause of cancer-related death in New York women, with more than 14,800 new cases and 2,800 deaths reported each year.
- Women comprise the majority (58%) of New York’s adult Medicaid beneficiaries.
- Heart Disease is the number one killer of women, killing 289,758 women in 2013—that’s about 1 in every 4 female deaths, yet women are more likely than men to be both underdiagnosed and undertreated.
- On average, women have a longer life expectancy than men. Combined with their greater health care needs, women tend to have higher average expenditures for home health care services and long-term care.
- See continued list below.
Reproductive Healthcare
- Three-quarters of women now entering the workforce will become pregnant on the job,
- About half of all women in the U.S. have an unplanned pregnancy at some point in their lives.
- One out of every three women in America has an abortion before the age of 45.
- Publicly funded family planning services in New York saved $605.8 million in public funds in 2010.
- Young people between the ages of 15 to 24 account for 50% of all new STD’s, although they represent just 25% of the sexually experienced population.
- 130,691 of New Yorkers are living with diagnosed HIV in 2013, 30% of them women.
- The Zika virus crisis illustrates the need for women to have full autonomy over their reproductive health, as well as government’s need to invest in ensuring women’s health.
- See continued list below.
Healthy Lives
Diabetes
- Racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected by diabetes, especially among the elderly.
- The average yearly health care cost for a person with diabetes is $13,700, a cost that is 2.3 times higher than a person without diabetes.
Breast Cancer
- Fortunately, in June 2016 New York passed a bill which enhanced access to breast cancer screenings
- In their lifetimes, patients can expect to spend between $20,000 and $100,000 treating breast cancer. It’s estimated that 97 percent of expenses are related to indirect costs, like lost wages.
Disability
- Approximately 2.5 million New Yorkers, 11.6% of them women, have disabling conditions. See age breakdown here.
- Nearly a third of women with physical disabilities nationwide, reported being denied services at a doctor’s office solely because of their disability.
Heart Disease
- WebMD estimates that treatment for heart disease could cost $1 million over the course of a lifetime.
- The good news in NY is that the rate of heart disease dropped 36% from 2001 to 2013
LGBTQ Community
- LGBTQ youth are more likely to experience mood and anxiety disorders, depression, and suicidal ideation and attempts than their non-LGBTQ counterparts.
- Transgender adults often face specific challenges to maintaining good health, including harassment and discrimination in medical settings, economic insecurity and lack of access to health insurance, refusal of care, and lack of knowledge among providers about the health care needs of transgender persons.
Reproductive Rights
Teen Pregnancy
- Nearly 1 in 3 teen girls cite pregnancy as the reason for dropping out of high school.
- The teen pregnancy rate is going down in New York, but for the more than 638,000 young women, the rate is still 41 out of 1,000. Check your county
- Almost half of teen mothers live in poverty.
- The decline in teen pregnancy has been linked to long-acting reversible contraceptives
HIV/AIDS
- The CDC reports that the estimated lifetime cost of treating HIV is $379,000 (in 2010 dollars), and that nearly 30% of those living with the virus are uninsured.
- LGBTQ youth are more likely to experience mood and anxiety disorders, depression, and suicidal ideation and attempts than their non-LGBTQ counterparts.
Abortion
- Despite constitutional safeguards, New York law does not allow a woman to get an abortion if her health is at risk or in the tragic circumstance when a fetus will not survive.
- New York’s outdated abortion law does not affirmatively protect a women’s right to an abortion.
Economic Cost of Parenthood
- Raising a child to adulthood can cost anywhere between $176,550 and $2 million. Calculate your child’s estimated cost by birth year here.
- It will cost a middle-class family from NYC nearly $500,000 to provide for the child’s first 18 years of life.
- It will cost a middle-class American family an average of $245,340 to provide for a child’s (born in 2013) first 18 years of life.
Resources
Reproductive Health Is Part of the Economic Health of Women and Their Families (National Women’s Law Center)
Title X Family Planning Annual Report (Office Of Population Affairs)
Promoting Reproductive Rights and Health (National Institute for Reproductive Health)
Repro Health & Rights (National Partnership for Women and Families)
Take Action on Zika Funding (Ms. Foundation)