5TH GLOBAL WOMEN’S HEALTH INDEX REPORT IDENTIFIES CONCERNING DROP IN AUSTRALIAN BREAST CANCER SCREENING Researchers, industry and patients with lived experience attend screening of breast cancer documentary to launch report

With
Professor Bruce Mann
Specialist Breast Surgeon;
Head of Breast Surgical Research,
The Royal  Melbourne Hospital &
Director of Research, Breast Cancer Trials &
Professor of Surgery,
University of Melbourne

Kensi Naicker,
General Manager, Hologic Australia & New Zealand

Lynette Bolton, 46
Diagnosed with fast-growing, triple negative breast cancer

SEGMENT
Filmed in Sydney | July 2026

The Hologic Global Women’s Health Index is one of the largest global reports dedicated exclusively to women’s health and wellbeing. Now in its fifth year, the Index tracks women’s health across five dimensions , Preventive Care, Emotional Health, Opinions of Health and Safety, Basic Needs and Individual Health – across 144 countries and territories, covering 97 per cent of the global adult population.

Launched this week to coincide with Conquering Breast Cancer – a new Australian documentary featuring survivors, advocates and clinicians, the Year 5 report is based on surveys conducted in 2024, by telephone and in person, with nearly 145,000 women and men aged 15+, commissioned by Hologic, and conducted by Gallup. In Australia, the survey sampled 1,000 respondents aged 15+, including boys, girls, men and women.

The Index provides decision-makers, researchers and advocates with timely, comprehensive data on women’s health and wellbeing worldwide, offering a vital benchmark for understanding where, and why, women struggle with healthcare and other basic necessities.

The drivers behind Australia’s decline are complex but increasingly clear. Women are 35 per cent more likely than men to delay or skip medical care, driven not only by individual choice, but by structural and gender-based inequities affecting access, affordability and autonomy. (1,2)

Cost-of-living pressures are compounding the issue. The Index’s Basic Needs score has fallen from 92 in Year 1 to 84 in Year 5 – one of the steepest declines across all dimensions.1 Australian women are also more stressed, worried, angry and sad than they were in Year 1 – with 52 per cent reporting feeling stressed for much of the previous day, and 41 per cent experiencing worry. (3)

Sources:

1. Gebreyes K, Dhar A, Bhatt J, Gerhardt W, Korenda L. What’s causing US women to skip or delay medical care? Life Sciences & Health Care: Deloitte; 2024. Available from:

https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/health-care/why-women-skip-or-delay-health-care.html.

2. Rata Mohan DS, Jawahir S, Manual A, Abdul Mutalib NE, Mohd Noh SN, Ab Rahim I, et al. Gender differences in health-seeking behaviour: insights from the National Health and Morbidity Survey 2019. BMC Health Serv Res. 2025;25(1):90

3. The Hologic Global Women’s Health Index: Australia. Hologic & Gallup; 2026.

Source: Adapted from media release