Women are more likely to wait longer for a health diagnosis and to be told their symptoms are 'all in their heads', a phenomenon that can prove lethal. Diagnostic errors cause an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 deaths annually in the United States alone.
In the UK, a 2016 report by the Brain Tumour Charity found that almost one in three brain tumour patients had visited a doctor more than five times before receiving their diagnosis. Nearly a quarter were not diagnosed for over a year. Women and low-income patients experienced longer delays, with women more likely to see 10 or more months pass between their first visit and diagnosis.
One 39-year-old woman recalled: 'One of the GPs I saw actually made fun of me, saying “what did I think my headaches were, a brain tumour?” I had to request a referral to neurology. No one took me seriously.'
Research shows that implicit bias—unconscious attitudes not linked to conscious prejudice—contributes to disparities in medical treatment. A 2015 study found longer delays from symptom onset to diagnosis for women in six out of 11 types of cancer. A 2013 study concluded that more than twice as many women as men had to make over three visits to a GP before being referred for suspected bladder cancer.
Jackie, who fell ill at 16 with chronic kidney problems, fevers, fatigue, and pain, was told by doctors that nothing was wrong and prescribed antidepressants. 'Everybody was telling me there was nothing wrong with me,' she said. The tendency to attribute women's physical complaints to mental illness has roots in the historical concept of 'hysteria'. In 1965, British psychiatrist Eliot Slater warned that a label of hysteria often allowed doctors to believe they had solved the mystery when they had not—over 60% of patients diagnosed with hysteria were later found to have organic neurological diseases.
