Sponsored session - Health literacy in women's cancers pathways NEW Report - Understanding to empower

Cancer is a growing global health problem for women, with 10 million new diagnoses every year.1 Women spend an average of nine more years in poor health compared to men,2 significantly affecting their quality of life and limiting their life potential. This panel discussion will explore how can we promote health literacy and empower women to be more involved in decisions that improve their health and wellbeing during the cancer journey?A crucial enabler for women to have more control over their wellbeing is by improving health literacy. Existing evidence highlights challenges such as cultural barriers, fragmented care coordination, and poorly designed and delivered information all of which contribute to poorer health literacy. This in turn limits the involvement of women in their care. The issue is particularly pronounced in women’s cancers where low levels of health literacy leads to missed opportunities for prevention, timely diagnoses, and early treatment, thereby reducing survival rates and lowering quality of life.This event will convene leading experts in women’s health, cancer, and health literacy to discuss the urgent need for integrating health literacy into cancer policies and women's health programmes at a global, regional, and local level. The panel marks the launch of the report ‘Understanding to Empower: Incorporating health literacy into care pathways for women's cancers’, developed by the Global Health Literacy Academy and Urška Košir. The report authors, alongside the panellists will discuss the findings and actionable policy recommendations for improving the delivery of cancer information to women who need it most. 1 Ginsburg O et al (2023). Women, power, and cancer: a Lancet Commission. Available here.2 World Economic Forum (2024). Closing the Women’s Health Gap: A $1 Trillion Opportunity to Improve Lives and Economies. Available here.