HIV/AIDS
For women aged 15-44 years, HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death worldwide, with unsafe sex being the main risk factor in developing countries. Biological factors, lack of access to information and health services, economic vulnerability and unequal power in sexual relations expose women, particularly young women, to HIV infection.
Maternal health
Maternal deaths are the second biggest killer of women of reproductive age. Every year, approximately 287 000 women die due to complications in pregnancy and childbirth, 99% of them are in developing countries.
Despite the increase in contraceptive use over the past 30 years, many women in all regions still do not have access to modern contraceptive methods. For example, in sub-Saharan Africa, one in four women who wish to delay or stop childbearing does not use any family planning method.
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis is often linked to HIV infection and is among the five leading causes of death, in low-income countries, among women of reproductive age and among adult women aged 20–59 years.
Injuries
Both self-inflicted injuries and road injuries figure among the top 10 causes of death among adult women (20-59 years) globally. In the WHO South-East Asia Region, burns are among the top 10 leading causes of death among women aged 15–44. Women suffer significantly more fire-related injuries and deaths than men, due to cooking accidents or as the result of intimate partner and family violence.
Cervical cancer
Cervical cancer is the second most common type of cancer in women worldwide, with all cases linked to a sexually transmitted genital infection with the human papillomavirus (HPV). Due to poor access to screening and treatment services, more than 90% of deaths occur in women living in low- and middle- income countries.
Violence
Violence against women is widespread around the world. Recent figures indicate that 35% of women worldwide have experienced either intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime. On average, 30% of women who have been in a relationship experienced some form of physical or sexual violence by their partner.
Globally, as many as 38% of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner.
Women who have been physically or sexually abused have higher rates of mental ill-health, unintended pregnancies, abortions and miscarriages than non-abused women. Women exposed to partner violence are twice as likely to be depressed, almost twice as likely to have alcohol use disorders, and 1.5 times more likely to have HIV or another sexually transmitted infection. 42% of them have experienced injuries as a result. Increasingly in many conflicts, sexual violence is also used as a tactic of war.
Depression and suicide
Women are more susceptible to depression and anxiety than men. Depression is the leading cause of disease burden for women in both high-income and low- and middle-income countries. Depression following childbirth, affects 20% of mothers in low- and lower-middle-income countries, which is even higher than previous reports from high-income countries.
Every year, an estimated 800 000 people die from suicide globally, the majority being men. However, there are exceptions, for instance in China where the suicide rate in rural areas is higher among women than men. Attempted suicide, which exceeds suicide by up to 20 times, is generally more frequent among women than men and causes an unrecognized burden of disability. At the same time, attempted suicide is an important risk factor for death from suicide and shows the need for appropriate health services for this group.
Disabilities
Disability – which affects 15% of the world’s population – is more common among women than men. Women with disabilities have poorer health outcomes, lower education achievements, less economic participation and higher rates of poverty than women without disabilities. Adult women with disabilities are at least 1.5 times more likely to be a victim of violence than those without a disability.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
Tobacco use and the burning of solid fuels for cooking are the primary risk factors for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – a life-threatening lung disease – in women. One third of all of the COPD deaths and disease burden in women is caused by exposure to indoor smoke from cooking with open fires or inefficient stoves.
