Reproductive health gaps persist across generations, new survey finds
Gaps in knowledge, diagnosis and care have remained largely unchanged
A new survey of 1,000 women suggests that gaps in reproductive health knowledge, diagnosis and care have remained largely unchanged across generations, despite growing attention on women’s health.
The study, commissioned by reproductive health platform myStoria, found that more than half of respondents had been told their symptoms were “normal” by a healthcare provider before later discovering they were not. Over 60% reported needing to see multiple providers to get a meaningful answer.
Most notably, the data showed little variation across age groups. Women in their twenties, thirties and fifties reported near-identical experiences - from delayed understanding of symptoms to feeling unprepared by school-based sex education.
More than half of respondents said sex education had not prepared them for adult reproductive health, while nearly 40% delayed seeking care because they were unsure whether their symptoms were serious enough.
Together, the findings point to a system that is not failing at a single point of care, but across the entire journey - from education and early awareness through to diagnosis and treatment. Researchers describe five interconnected gaps (in knowledge, dismissal, generation, navigation, and tools) that compound over a lifetime of reproductive health decisions.
“This is not a story about individual providers failing individual patients,” said Jessica Chalk, founder and chief executive of myStoria. “It is a story about a system that was never designed to prepare us for our own bodies.”
The survey also highlights the extent of the “invisible labour” involved in navigating reproductive health. Nearly one-third of respondents reported spending one to three hours per week researching, booking appointments and coordinating care.
While awareness of women’s health issues has increased in recent years, the data suggests that this has not yet translated into meaningful improvements in how women experience care.
Knowledge can also be traced back to the earliest days - with 56% of respondents saying that school-based sex education did not prepare them for adult reproductive health, and only 22.8% agreed that it did.
The report concludes that information and knowledge could make a meaningful difference to health experiences. When respondents were asked what single thing would have made the biggest difference in their reproductive health journey, 41.8% said understanding their symptoms earlier - nearly twice as often as the next most common answer. A further 24.2% said knowing what questions to ask and how to advocate for themselves. Together, these two answers account for 65.7% of all respondents.