Women’s Health as Economic Strategy

Conversations on women’s health in India are typically narrow, focusing on pregnancy, childbirth, and family planning.^[1] This lens has left much of women’s health invisible to policymakers. A girl who survives early childhood and adolescence goes on to navigate menstruation, anaemia, risks of early marriage, pregnancy and childbirth, and an adult life increasingly shaped by non-communicable diseases (NCDs), mental health conditions, and chronic pain. As she grows older, she carries the cumulative effects of unpaid care work, fragmented access to care, and often limited financial security.

Global work on the “women’s health gap” has helped sharpen the broader picture. A 2024 report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the McKinsey Health Institute estimates that women spend about a quarter more of their lives in poor health than men, accounting for both years lived and quality of health.^[2] Investments that close this gap would not only add years of healthy life for women but could also increase global gross domestic product (GDP) by at least US$1 trillion a year by 2040. These estimates underscore that, beyond an ethical imperative, women’s health is central to human development and economic strategy.

In India, these arguments sit within a complex landscape characterised by both, progress in service access and public health delivery, and persistent gender inequalities such as in economic participation and decision-making. National programmes have expanded institutional delivery, contraceptive choice, and immunisation, and data shows that women account for nearly half of all beneficiaries under the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY), in terms of both possession of Ayushman cards and hospital admissions under the scheme.^[3] At the same time, the Global Gender Gap Report 2024 finds that the world is only about two-thirds of the way to gender parity, and, at the current pace, full parity is more than a century away.^[4] India’s own score in the report reflects gains in education and health but continuing gaps in economic participation and political empowerment.

This special report begins from the view that women’s health outcomes will depend on how technology is applied, how rising NCD and mental health needs are met, how the workforce is organised, how women-led innovation is encouraged, and how the financing of women’s health services and the governance of health systems and digital health architectures adapt to these shifts. Digital health and artificial intelligence (AI) are expanding what is possible, but they can either close or widen gaps. Public financing mechanisms such as cashless hospital coverage and subsidised diagnostics can improve equity by reducing cost barriers, while health data systems such as electronic health records, registries, and digital service platforms can improve continuity and accountability. Yet these same systems could entrench exclusion if they are designed without women’s voices and realities, especially in contexts shaped by time poverty, low digital access, and lack of control over devices and data.

The analysis that follows is based on discussions at the ORF–MEC^[a],[5] Health Impact Roundtable, “Women’s Health Futures: Innovation, Equity and Lifelong Wellbeing,” held in New Delhi in November 2025.^[6] It builds on insights shared during the roundtable and supplements the analysis through the use of recent evidence to examine these levers and outline a practical agenda for policymakers, practitioners, and investors.

Making Technology a Force Multiplier

Across India, digital health tools are now woven into routine care. Ayushman Arogya Mandirs (AAMs)^[b] use the national telemedicine platform, eSanjeevani,^[c] to connect patients with remote doctors. By the end of April 2026, more than 46.5 crore (465 million) patients had been covered through eSanjeevani, with over 1.3 lakh (0.139 million) spokes and thousands of hubs in operation.^[7] In this model, the spoke is typically the AAM or primary-level facility where the patient is physically present, usually with a facilitator or generalist, while the hub is the doctor- or specialist-staffed facility, often at a higher level of care, that provides the remote consultation. A 2025 study of the e-Sanjeevani’s Ayushman Bharat-Health and Wellness Centre (AB-HWC) mode found that 59.8 percent of consultations in 2020 were with female patients, suggesting that remote consultations are meeting some of the needs of those who may have less mobility.^[8]

Alongside telemedicine, the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) is building a digital health infrastructure that includes unique health identifiers, facility and provider registries, and frameworks for health information exchange.^[9] These tools can make care more continuous and person-centric. A woman who seeks antenatal care at a primary health centre (PHC), consults a specialist online, and later visits a district hospital should not have to repeat her story to each provider. If digital records follow her, the system can recognise patterns, reconcile prescriptions, and flag risks more efficiently.

The reality, however, is uneven. The National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) (2019-21) found that only one in three women ages 15 to 49 reported ever using the internet, compared with more than half of men.^[10] An analysis by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) of the same survey notes that around 54 percent of women have their own mobile phones, but only about a third use the internet.^[11] These figures come from NFHS-5 and should therefore be read as the most recent nationally representative baseline, rather than as a real-time estimate of women’s current digital access. Even so, they illustrate the structural disadvantage from which digital health expansion in India has had to begin. Where a woman does not own a phone or depends on another household member to access a device, the promise of “anytime, anywhere” digital care can remain abstract.

Technology can still play a role in such settings, but design choices differ. Voice-based interfaces in Indian languages, assisted telemedicine through AAMs, and simple decision-support tools in the hands of Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) and Anganwadi workers are more realistic entry points than app-based self-tracking alone.^[d] Evidence from telemedicine suggests that when public infrastructure is strong and a human intermediary helps navigate it, women do use remote consultations.

Global work on the women’s health gap adds another layer. Analysis by the WEF and the McKinsey Health Institute finds that much of the burden comes from conditions that have historically been under-recognised or under-treated in women, such as migraine, musculoskeletal pain, menopausal symptoms, and autoimmune diseases, and not from reproductive health alone.^[12] AI and advanced diagnostics can, at least in theory, help detect such conditions earlier or personalise treatments. Yet algorithms are only as fair as the data on which they are trained. If women, especially from low-income and marginalised communities, are underrepresented in clinical datasets and imaging repositories, AI tools may be less accurate for them. Reviews of AI in biomedicine have documented persistent sex and gender gaps in the datasets and evaluation pipelines on which such systems rely, and work on medical imaging has shown that gender-imbalanced datasets can produce biased classifiers for computer-aided diagnosis.^[13],[14]

An equity-first approach to digital health in India must therefore address who is visible in the data and who can use the interfaces. This requires investment in inclusive datasets, safeguards for women’s consent and privacy, and mechanisms for grievance and correction when digital tools misclassify or mistreat. It also requires designing for low connectivity, shared devices, and limited literacy, rather than assuming an urban, smartphone-owning professional.

In other words, technology should be treated as a force multiplier for the human system, not a shortcut that bypasses it. When digital tools are co-designed with frontline workers and community members, validated in real-world settings, and embedded in primary care, they can extend reach and reduce burdens. When imposed as additional reporting requirements or rolled out without adequate training and support, they risk eroding time and trust.

Chronic Burdens on Women’s Health

Women in India face a growing burden of NCDs and mental health conditions across their life course. As infectious and maternal threats recede, chronic illnesses such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes, cancers, and depression are becoming leading causes of poor health outcomes among women. The probability of an Indian woman dying from an NCD between birth and age 80 has risen from 46.7 percent in 2001 to 48.7 percent in 2019.^[15] Between 2010 and 2019, India moved against the broader global pattern, with women’s NCD mortality risk worsening rather than improving.^[16] Mental health issues have also heightened, with approximately one in five women (20 percent) reported to have a diagnosable mental health condition, which is double the rate in men (10 percent).^[17] These patterns emphasise the need to extend the focus from reproductive health to issues related to chronic diseases and psychosocial factors that affect women's lives.

CVD and diabetes are central to this epidemiological shift. CVD is today the single largest cause of death (40 percent) among Indian women,^[18] and Indians, on average, experience CVD nearly a decade earlier than people of European ancestry.^[19] Yet women’s cardiac symptoms are more likely to be misdiagnosed as anxiety or indigestion, and they are less likely than men to receive timely investigations and treatment.^[20] Awareness also remains low. Diabetes adds a second, related burden. National data suggests that a significant proportion of Indians are undiagnosed until complications such as kidney disease or visual loss occur.^[21],[22] Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) and gestational diabetes increase susceptibility among younger and pregnant women, while puberty, pregnancy, and menopause alter metabolism and can accelerate progression to type 2 diabetes.^[23],[24] Gender norms compound these risks: women in many households eat last and least,^[25] have limited time or autonomy for physical activity,^[26] and defer care due to family responsibilities.

Women also face a growing burden of cancers, especially of the breast and cervix. Breast cancer is now the most common cancer among Indian women, accounting for roughly a third of new female cancer cases.^[27] Together with cervical and ovarian cancers, it constitutes a major threat to women’s health.^[28] India confronts a dual challenge of rising incidence and very low screening uptake: only a small minority of eligible women have ever undergone breast or cervical screening (2 percent),^[29] due to low awareness, stigma, and a lack of women-friendly services. HWCs now offer screening for cervical and breast cancer,^[30] and an indigenous human papillomavirus vaccine creates an opportunity to reduce cervical cancer incidence through adolescent immunisation.^[31] Yet that opportunity will depend on uptake as much as availability. India’s rollout still has to contend with low awareness, lingering mistrust, and misinformation around the vaccine, which means that school- and community-based communication and parental confidence-building will be as important as procurement.^[32] Innovators are piloting AI-assisted tools, such as thermal imaging-based breast cancer screening,^[33] while AI-supported modalities to interpret cervical images are also emerging,^[34] with the potential to extend early detection beyond tertiary centres.

The mental health of India’s women is an equally pressing concern and is tightly interwoven with NCDs. Depression and anxiety are more prevalent in women than in men^[35] and are linked to domestic and intimate partner violence, economic dependence, social isolation, and traumatic experiences in childhood or early adulthood.^[36] In recent years, the government has sought to bring mental health services closer to communities, including through a national tele-mental health programme^[37] that offers round-the-clock counselling via toll-free numbers and digital platforms. For women who cannot easily travel unaccompanied or who fear stigma at local facilities, such services can provide a first point of contact. Alongside tele-counselling, India is expanding mental health care at PHCs to identify and treat conditions such as postpartum depression.^[38]

Across all these conditions, social determinants and gender roles shape risks, exposures, and access to care. Women’s higher NCD and disability burden in later life is often the cumulative effect of lifelong nutritional deficits, unpaid care work, hazardous household and occupational environments, and constrained decision-making power. The feminisation of ageing,^[39] with many older women widowed and living with limited income and support, further amplifies vulnerability to both chronic disease and mental ill health. A serious response to women’s NCDs and mental health therefore requires not only better diagnostics and medicines but also policies that redistribute care responsibilities and reduce everyday risks, including access to clean cooking fuel, safe transport, crèches, and social protection for caregivers. It also requires closing the digital gender gap and ensuring that the datasets and models underpinning new AI tools adequately represent women across social and geographic contexts.

Reimagining the Health Workforce

Women’s health futures will depend as much on people as on platforms. In practice, the system an Indian woman encounters is shaped by CHWs, Anganwadi workers, nurses, general physicians, pharmacists, specialists, and informal providers. Many of these providers are women who already carry a disproportionate share of unpaid domestic and care work at home. As Figure 1 illustrates, Indian women perform several times more hours of unpaid care work per day than men, leaving them with far less discretionary time and deepening what researchers describe as “time poverty”.

Figure 1: When Work Goes Unpaid: Women’s Domestic and Care Burden

Source: Visualised by authors from multiple sources^{[40],[41], [42]}

When these same women enter the formal or semi-formal health workforce, unpaid care burdens do not disappear. They are layered onto paid work that often involves irregular hours, emotional labour, and exposure to distress. For ASHAs, the frontline health workers who are treated as volunteers or honorary workers in many states, much of their work remains under-compensated.^[43]

At the same time, India’s health reforms have opened up new roles. Community Health Officers (CHOs) now lead teams at AAMs. The NHM has contracted hundreds of thousands of additional staff, including nurses and paramedical workers.^[44] Digital platforms, including telemedicine, shape how these teams interact with specialists and with patients, particularly in remote locations. In principle, these innovations can improve access by bringing services closer to home, supporting continuity in chronic care, and clarifying referral pathways.

To realise this potential, workforce design must follow a small set of ideas. Women’s health should be treated as a system-wide responsibility, not confined to gynaecology and obstetrics. General physicians and nurses in primary care should be equipped to recognise and manage common women-centred issues—menstrual disorders, anaemia, menopausal symptoms, depression, and intimate partner violence—while referring complex cases appropriately. CHWs should be treated as infomediaries and care coordinators, not data-entry operators. Digital tools should reduce paperwork, support prioritisation of visits, and strengthen follow-up, rather than add reporting burdens. The mental health and safety of the workforce also require attention, particularly for women working in remote or hostile environments.

A reimagined workforce for women’s health in India would therefore blend role clarity, appropriate training, fair compensation, and supportive technology. It would recognise that women are both providers and users of care, carrying responsibilities and risks on both sides of the system.

Given the scale and profile of women’s NCD and mental health needs, workforce policy cannot be confined to filling sanctioned posts; it must reconfigure what teams are trained and incentivised to do across the life course. A primary care team organised around episodic maternal and child health visits will struggle to manage chronic cardiovascular risk, diabetes, cancers, chronic pain, and depression in mid-life and older women. This implies deliberate investment in skill mix: CHWs, nurses, and CHOs need structured training and decision support for screening, basic counselling, long-term adherence, and early identification of red flags in NCDs and mental health, rather than being used primarily for data collection and health campaigns.

General physicians require clearer clinical pathways for conditions such as postpartum depression, menopausal symptoms, and intimate partner violence that often fall between disciplines. At the same time, the heavy unpaid care load and time poverty faced by women health workers should be recognised as system risks, not private problems. Policy instruments, ranging from performance incentives and regularised honoraria for ASHAs to protected training time, supportive supervision, and psychosocial support, are central to making the workforce capable of responding to women’s chronic health needs. Without such shifts in training, role design, and protections, the expansion of digital tools and benefit packages will rest on a workforce whose capacities and well-being are being overstretched.

Women-Centric Health Entrepreneurship and Innovation Finance

The sharp decline in India’s maternal and newborn mortality rates over the last two decades is attributed to a combination of strengthened public health systems and broader socio-economic progress.^[45] However, healthcare needs remain large and unevenly distributed, especially for women in access to reproductive health, maternal care, diagnostics, preventive services, and hygiene.^[46] A study on the determinants of full utilisation of the continuum of maternal and newborn healthcare services in rural India found that although 88.6 percent of rural women received a skilled birth attendant at delivery and 75.5 percent received post-natal care within 48 hours, only 43.5 percent of mother-newborn pairs utilised the full continuum of services, with stark geographic disparities.^[47] Even in urban settings, wealth disparity influences maternal health service utilisation.^[48] Research indicates that socio-economically disadvantaged women in rural India face barriers such as poor infrastructure, limited transport and connectivity, lack of support, and low awareness, all of which constrain access to routine, preventive, and reproductive health services.^[49]

In this context, women-centric health entrepreneurship—through community-based workers, self-help groups (SHGs), women’s collectives, and telehealth hubs—offers a mechanism to bridge last-mile gaps. A cross-sectional study shows improvements in antenatal utilisation, quality of care, and early initiation of breastfeeding through the involvement of Anganwadi workers and ASHAs.^[50]  A multi-country study from Bangladesh, India, and Vietnam finds that SHGs and support groups contribute positively to maternal and child nutrition.^[51] Community-based interventions also have the potential to influence adolescent nutritional behaviour in low- and middle-income countries.^[52]  A recent study has further demonstrated the crucial role of CHWs in improving health-seeking behaviour among women.^[53]

By positioning women not only as beneficiaries but also as health providers, micro-entrepreneurs, and service intermediaries, these models address supply-side gaps while strengthening women’s agency and economic participation.^[54] This aligns with the vision of Viksit Bharat 2047, which identifies higher women’s labour force participation (around 70 percent) as a key to India’s economic transformation.^[55]

Women-led health enterprises can complement public health systems by extending reach, improving continuity of care, and enhancing the uptake of preventive and maternal and child health services. SHGs have long served as vehicles for microfinance, livelihood generation, and women’s economic empowerment in India.^[56] Evidence suggests that SHG involvement through savings, microloans, and collective enterprises not only improves women’s incomes, savings and social status, but also strengthens their decision-making power within households and communities.^[57],[58]

Beyond SHGs and traditional microenterprises, a growing number of women-focused health start-ups in India are leveraging technology, digital platforms, diagnostics, preventive care, and wellness to address women’s health needs.^[59] These enterprises can potentially offer menstrual health support, reproductive health counselling, diagnostics, mental health support, and tele-consultations and can reach both urban and non-urban users, provided connectivity and awareness are ensured. Table 1 provides examples of women-focused health organisations and enterprises working on women’s health, hygiene, maternal and childcare, nutrition, and menstrual care.

Table 1: Organisations Working in Women’s Health, Nutrition, and Menstrual Care

Organisation	Primary Focus
Matru Sewa Sangh (MSS)[60]	Long-standing non-profit (founded 1921) providing maternity and maternal and child health services, neonatal care, working women’s hostels, and community social welfare services, with a focus on affordable care for women and children in underserved communities.
Child in Need Institute (CINI)[61]	Non-governmental organisation (NGO) working across health, nutrition, and education for children, adolescents, and women in vulnerable and poverty-affected areas, with a focus on maternal, reproductive, nutritional, and child health.
Humans For Humanity (HFH)[62]	NGO focused on menstrual health, hygiene, and awareness in rural and low-income communities, producing low-cost sanitary pads and delivering water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) education to millions of women across states.
Urban Health Resource Centre (UHRC)[63]	Organisation working in poor urban and slum communities (for example in cities: Agra, North-east Delhi and Indore), forming women’s and adolescent girls’ groups and focusing on maternal and child health, nutrition, hygiene and linkage with health providers and government services.
Deepak Foundation[64]	Non-profit operating in semi-urban, rural, and industrial areas in Gujarat, providing maternal and child health services and rural and tribal community health infrastructure, with an emphasis on integrated rural health and livelihood support.
Mamta Health Institute for Mother and Child (Mamta NGO)[65]	Organisation that began as a small clinic in Delhi’s urban slums and now delivers maternal, adolescent, reproductive, and child health services, along with rights-based programmes, especially targeting underserved and marginalised populations.
Comprehensive Rural Health Project (CRHP)[66]	Landmark rural health NGO in Maharashtra (active since 1970) using a community-based model of SHGs, village health workers, sanitation, and adolescent and maternal care to deliver primary healthcare and broader community development, including women’s health and welfare.
Elda Health[67]	Female-focused technology (FemTech) start-up focusing on midlife and menopause-related wellness through at-home tests, personalised care, lifestyle counselling, and mental health support for women beyond reproductive age.
Arva Health[68]	Tech-enabled reproductive health and fertility-care start-up (founded 2022) combining diagnostics, treatment, and emotional support to make fertility care more accessible and affordable.
Nua Women[69]	Direct-to-consumer (D2C) wellness brand addressing menstrual and intimate hygiene needs through sanitary pads, period-care products, and menstrual wellness solutions, exemplifying a product-led FemTech and women’s hygiene model.
Gytree[70]	Tech-enabled health platform helping women manage chronic hormonal conditions such as PCOS, thyroid imbalance, and fertility challenges through ongoing monitoring and guided care.
Sirona[71]	Brand addressing everyday but often unspoken problems, such as unhygienic public toilets, period-related challenges, menstrual cups, pee funnels, and intimate hygiene products.
Inito[72]	Smart at-home fertility monitor using a smartphone-connected device to track multiple hormones with near lab-level accuracy.
Avni Wellness[73]	Enterprise offering eco-friendly cloth pads, biodegradable menstrual products, and educational programmes, combining sustainability with affordability in menstrual health.
Welldium[74]	Mental and sexual wellness platform for young adults, offering anonymous consultations, discreet sexually transmitted infection (STI) testing kits, and access to certified sexologists and psychologists via an app.

A Life-Course Approach to Women’s Health Financing

The way health systems are financed shapes which services are available, at what price, and to whom. In India, public spending on health has grown at both Union and state levels, but out-of-pocket payments remain a large share of total health expenditure.^[75] These payments often fall hardest on women, who may delay or forgo care if they do not control household resources.

Schemes such as AB-PMJAY have changed the landscape for hospital-based care. Official data indicates that the scheme has covered more than seven crore (70 million) hospital admissions, with women accounting for about 49 percent of beneficiaries.^[76] This is an important signal: when cashless coverage is available and actively promoted, women use it. The challenge is that many conditions driving the women’s health gap, particularly in later life, do not present as discrete hospital episodes. Chronic musculoskeletal pain, anxiety and depression, long-term complications of diabetes or hypertension, and the frailty of old age require ongoing, relationship-based care rather than single admissions.

A life-course approach to financing women’s health would prioritise primary and community care. It would ensure that screening for hypertension, diabetes, and common cancers—already underway at AAMs—remains free at the point of use and is linked to affordable medicines and diagnostics.^[77] It would include coverage for counselling and mental health services, particularly around pregnancy and menopause, as well as rehabilitative services such as physiotherapy, which are often essential for women carrying heavy physical and emotional burdens. It would also recognise the rising needs of older women, many of whom live alone or depend on spouses and daughters-in-law whose time is limited.

Financial protection cannot be separated from visibility within the system. Women’s unpaid care work both subsidises and obscures the real cost of health and social protection. When a woman spends hours each day caring for a sick family member, that effort rarely appears in budgets or accounts. Yet it affects her ability to engage in paid work, participate in social life, and seek care. Time-use studies that quantify this labour, and policy briefs that estimate its economic value, provide a basis for recognising and redistributing care responsibilities. Public investment in childcare, elder care, and respite services is therefore part of the financing story for women’s health, even where these investments sit partly outside the health budget.

Governance questions cut across these themes. Digital health initiatives raise issues of data protection, consent, and algorithmic accountability. The rollout of the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP)^[78] framework will shape how health data, including sensitive reproductive and mental health information, are collected and used. In the absence of strong guardrails and independent oversight, women may be reluctant to share information or use digital services, particularly in contexts involving stigma or violence.

Measurement also matters. Many routine health information systems do not capture several dimensions of women’s health highlighted in global reports, such as the prevalence and severity of chronic pain conditions, the mental health impact of unpaid care burdens, or the specific experiences of older women living alone. Where data exist, they are often scattered across departmental silos.

A governance agenda for women’s health futures must therefore start with what is counted, who decides, and who is protected. Gender-sensitive health indicators need to move beyond maternal mortality and contraceptive use to routinely tracking chronic pain, functional limitation, common mental disorders, NCD control, and service use by age, marital status, and living arrangement. Disaggregation should make older and single women visible in district dashboards. Digital health rollouts should embed data protection and consent practices that respond to women’s specific risks, including default privacy for sensitive encounters (reproductive health, violence, mental health), clear rules on secondary data use and independent oversight of how algorithms perform across different groups of women. At the same time, district health societies and state-level steering committees should reserve space for women’s groups, self-help federations and CHWs, with formal roles in priority-setting, monitoring and grievance redress so that governance reflects women’s lived experience rather than treating them as data points alone.

A Shared Agenda for the Next Decade

The idea of “women’s health futures” invites a shift in perspective. Instead of asking only how to reduce maternal mortality or increase contraceptive uptake, it asks what it would take for women to live longer, healthier lives with greater control over their bodies and time. It also asks what this would mean for India’s economic and social trajectory.

The case for such a shift is well established. Global and national analyses show that improvements in women’s health across the life course yield gains not only in survival but in labour force participation, productivity, educational outcomes, and household resilience. In India, time-use and survey data underline persistent gaps: women continue to shoulder most unpaid care, face digital access constraints, and have limited control over household resources. The health system both mirrors these inequalities and has the potential to reshape them.

The next decade offers a practical window for action. Digital health and AI can be steered towards equity if grounded in inclusive data, robust safeguards, and designs suited to low connectivity and limited autonomy. The health workforce can be reconfigured so that CHWs, nurses, and general physicians are equipped to respond to women’s needs across the life course. Financing and governance reforms can align benefits with women’s risk profiles, strengthen primary care, and make care economies more visible in budgets and policy.

Over the next five years, state-level digital health strategies and ABDM-linked architectures offer an opportunity to embed gender-sensitive indicators, DPDP-compliant safeguards, and routine public reporting on women’s health. A national scorecard—drawing on surveys and digital health data—could track chronic pain, mental health, functional limitation, and service use among older and single women at state and district levels. If tied to performance reviews and financing incentives, such scorecards could turn governance and data reforms into mechanisms for accountability and course correction.

These arguments point to a clear set of priorities for the next five to ten years across technology, workforce design, and financing and governance:

• Design digital health tools for women’s real contexts by prioritising voice-based interfaces in Indian languages, assisted telemedicine through AAMs, and simple decision-support tools for CHWs.
• Build inclusive and accountable data and AI systems by investing in datasets that adequately represent women across caste, class, geography, and life stage; establishing grievance and correction mechanisms; and designing for low connectivity, shared devices, and limited literacy.
• Deploy digital tools to strengthen PHCs through co-design with women, frontline workers, and communities.
• Redesign CHW roles so ASHAs and other CHWs act as infomediaries and care coordinators for NCDs and mental health, with structured training and decision support for screening, basic counselling, adherence support, and early warning signs, instead of being used primarily as data collectors.
• Recognise time poverty and occupational stress among women health workers as system risks, and respond with concrete instruments: regularised honoraria and performance incentives for ASHAs, protected time for training, supportive supervision, and psychosocial support for frontline staff, especially in remote or hostile environments.
• Align financing with a life-course approach by keeping primary-level screening for hypertension, diabetes, and common cancers free at AAMs, linking it to affordable medicines and diagnostics, and expanding benefit packages to include counselling, mental health services around pregnancy and menopause, and rehabilitative services such as physiotherapy, with explicit attention to older women living alone or with limited support.
• Rebuild health indicators and measurement systems around women’s actual burden by developing gender-sensitive indicators that track chronic pain, functional limitation, common mental disorders, NCD control, and service use disaggregated by age, marital status, and living arrangement, and by making older and single women visible in district and state dashboards and national scorecards.
• Build a national platform that integrates women-led health enterprises, including SHG-based models, community clinics, telehealth hubs, and FemTech start-ups, into public health pathways, with standardised training, interoperable digital tools, quality benchmarks, and outcome-based financing to scale models that improve access to menstrual, reproductive, maternal, and NCD care for underserved women.

If these strands come together, women’s health can move from a narrow programme category to a core test of system performance. The goal is not only to avoid illness, but to ensure that women of all ages can participate fully in social and economic life, with care that recognises their realities and rights.

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Oommen C. Kurian is Senior Fellow and Head, Health Initiative, ORF.

Shoba Suri is Senior Fellow, Health Initiative, ORF.

K.S. Uplabdh Gopal is Associate Fellow, Health Initiative, ORF.

Rahul Manchanda is Director at Manchanda’s Endoscopic Centre and Head of Gynaecological Endoscopy at PSRI Hospital, New Delhi.

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Acknowledgement

ChatGPT assisted with proofreading and language editing. All factual content, analysis, and conclusions are solely the responsibility of the authors.

Annex

Women’s Health Futures: Innovation, Equity, and Lifelong Well-being

Roundtable Discussion organised by Observer Research Foundation and Manchanda’s Endoscopic Centre

8 November 2025 | New Delhi

Participants and Speakers

Rashmi Singh, Secretary, Department of Women and Child Development, Government of NCT of Delhi

Anna Roy, Principal Economic Adviser & Mission Director, Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP), NITI Aayog.

Anurag Agarwal, Dean, BioSciences & Health Research, Trivedi School of Biosciences, Ashoka University.

Maneesh Goyal, Chief Operating Officer, Mayo Clinic Platform.

Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals.

G S Grewal, Internal Medicine & Elder Care, Fortis Escorts Hospital.

Harsh Mahajan, Founder & Chief Radiologist, Mahajan Imaging.

Shirshendu Mukherjee, Managing Director, WIN, Wadhwani Foundation.

Endnotes

^[a] Manchanda’s Endoscopic Centre is a New Delhi–based gynaecology and minimally invasive surgery facility led by Dr. Rahul Manchanda.

^[b] Ayushman Arogya Mandirs (AAMs) are upgraded sub-health centres and primary health centres under Ayushman Bharat that provide free, comprehensive primary health care through an expanded range of services closer to communities.

^[c] eSanjeevani is the Government of India’s national, free-to-use, cloud-based telemedicine platform managed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, enabling video consultations between patients and doctors and hub-and-spoke teleconsultations via AAMs and other public facilities.

^[d] In India, community health workers or CHWs include cadres such as Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), Anganwadi Workers and Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs). ASHAs are women selected from within the community and trained under the National Health Mission (NHM) to act as health activists, educators and facilitators, linking households to sub-centres and PHCs and promoting services such as immunisation, antenatal and postnatal care, family planning and basic management of common illnesses.

^[1] Shikha Bhasin, Ankita Shukla, and Sapna Desai, “Services for Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health in India: An Analysis of Treatment-Seeking for Symptoms of Reproductive Tract Infections in a Nationally Representative Survey,” BMC Women’s Health 20, no. 156 (2020), https://bmcwomenshealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12905-020-01024-3.

^[2] World Economic Forum and McKinsey Health Institute, “Closing the Women’s Health Gap: A $1 Trillion Opportunity to Improve Lives and Economies,” World Economic Forum, January 17, 2024, https://www.weforum.org/publications/closing-the-women-s-health-gap-a-1-trillion-opportunity-to-improve-lives-and-economies.

^[3] Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. “4.5 Crore Families to Be Benefitted,” Press Release, September 11, 2024, https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseDetail.aspx?PRID=2053881&reg=3&lang=1 .

^[4] World Economic Forum, “Global Gender Gap Report 2024,” Geneva, World Economic Forum, June 11, 2024, https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-gender-gap-report-2024.

^[5] Manchanda’s Endoscopic Centre, “Homepage,” https://gynaeendoscopy.com/.

^[6] Observer Research Foundation, “Women’s Health Futures: Innovation, Equity and Lifelong Wellbeing,” Event, November 8 2025,  https://www.orfonline.org/event/women-s-health-futures-innovation-equity-and-lifelong-wellbeing.

^[7] Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, “eSanjeevani Dashboard,” April 2026, https://esanjeevani.mohfw.gov.in/#/.

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• Healthcare
• India
• AI in healthcare
• ASHA workers
• Digital health
• Health workforce
• Mental health
• Non-communicable diseases
• Women's health financing
• Women's health futures
• Women's health governance
• Women's health in India

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