Women and Mental Health: Supporting Women’s Unique Needs – Thought Leadership

Women and Mental Health: Supporting Women’s Unique Needs

Behavioral Health Insights
By Micah Hoffman, MD, DABPN, FAPA, QME, CIME, CHCQM
AllMed Behavioral Health Medical Director

 

Mental illness can affect anyone. The same condition often looks different in women than in men. For example, women with anxiety disorders are more likely to internalize emotions, resulting in withdrawal, loneliness, and depression. Men are more likely to externalize emotions, leading to impulsive, coercive, and noncompliant behavior.¹

For decades, research efforts focused primarily on male subjects. Now, that focus is changing because of mandates by agencies that fund research, like the National Institutes for Health. Optimizing care for women’s health calls for up-to-date and in-depth awareness of the biological and societal disparities between women’s and men’s mental health.

Multifactorial Influences

In the United States, women are nearly twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with depression.² This was true even before Covid-19 and the opioid epidemic exacerbated long-standing mental health issues and prompted growing demand for mental health services, particularly among women.³ While biological differences may explain some of the imbalance, societal influences play a key role as well. Psychosocial factors that may increase the risk of depression and other forms of mental illness in women include:

Economic disadvantage – Women are more likely than men to live in poverty, which causes stress and uncertainty about the future and creates barriers to health care resources.

Overwork – Women often work outside the home, sometimes in multiple jobs, while caring for children and/or elderly family members.

Sexual or physical abuse – Individuals who were emotionally, physically and/or sexually abused as children or adults are more likely to experience depression at some point in their lives than those who were not abused. Women are more likely than men to experience sexual abuse.

Gender-specific Barriers to Care

It’s not just risk factors that affect women disproportionately. The societal part of the equation also includes unique hurdles that women face when attempting to access care. For example, many who work outside the home and/or care for family members may not have the time off, childcare resources, or transportation to allow for in-person appointments. These obstacles impact women in rural areas, where mental and behavioral health resources are scarce, especially hard.

The shifting legal status of some aspects of reproductive health care is exacerbating these challenges. Reproductive health care is an essential part of women’s health and well-being. Yet recent legislation at the state level restricting access to reproductive health care is adding new layers of complexity and new barriers to treatment for women and the medical professionals who care for them.

New Trends Expanding Access

The good news is that in the past several years, several pandemic-accelerated trends have begun to help some women overcome long-established barriers. The growing availability of telehealth care has vastly increased access to providers with specialized training, especially for rural women and those from marginalized and underserved communities.⁴ Similarly, social media platforms have offered a new modality and new opportunities for delivering free, accurate education about mental health issues and treatment.

Within healthcare, the growing emphasis on integrative care, which recognizes the interdependencies between medical conditions and mental and behavioral health conditions, has expanded access across the board. In one example specific to women, more hospitals and medical practices now have mental health experts embedded in obstetrics and gynecology departments. This arrangement brings resources directly to women at a time when many are likely to need support for issues such as post-partum depression.

AllMed Helps Health Plans Close the Gap

Untreated and inadequately treated women’s mental health issues impose significant emotional and economic costs on the affected individuals, their loved ones and society as a whole. Improving access and the quality of care not only mitigates some of these harms, but also makes good business sense. A recent study found that use of mental health services in one year was associated with a smaller increase in overall health care expenditures the subsequent year.⁵ This finding is consistent with prior research showing cost offsets from higher use of mental health services.⁶ As the study’s authors explain, these offsets may be related to downstream effects on utilization of mental or physical health care resulting from improvements in mental or chronic physical health conditions.

As the demand for mental health treatment grows, particularly among women, health plans are innovating and working hard to meet the needs of their members. AllMed’s behavioral health panel and reviews can help. Our nationwide network of specialists includes board-certified psychiatrists and psychologists who apply the most relevant clinical evidence and standards of care to each case they review to support optimal outcomes. Partnering with AllMed makes it easier to address members’ needs at the right level of care and in the most clinically appropriate way, allowing plans to optimize costs while improving the quality of care.

 

1. Eaton, N. R., Keyes, K. M., Krueger, R. F., Balsis, S., Skodol, A. E., Markon, K. E., Grant, B. F., & Hasin, D. S. (2012). An invariant dimensional liability model of gender differences in mental disorder prevalence: Evidence from a national sample. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 121(1), 282–288. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024780
2. Brody DJ, Pratt LA, Hughes J. Prevalence of depression among adults aged 20 and over: United States, 2013–2016. NCHS Data Brief, no 303. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2018.
3. Diep K, Frederiksen B, et al. Access and Coverage for Mental Health Care: Findings from the 2022 KFF Women’s Health Survey. KFF. Dec 20, 2022.
4. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Telehealth for the Treatment of Serious Mental Illness and Substance Use Disorders. SAMHSA Publication No. PEP21-06-02-001 Rockville, MD: National Mental Health and Substance Use Policy Laboratory. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2021.
5. Bui LN, Yoon J, Hynes DM: A reduction in health care expenditures linked to mental health service use among adults with chronic physical conditions. Psychiatr Serv 2021; 72:766–775. May 4, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.202000161. Accessed Jan 18, 2023.
6. Jackson DS, Wiley W, Horvitz-Lennon M. Improving Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Care for the Nation. Psychiatry Online. Jul 1, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.72702. Accessed Jan 18, 2023.

 

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