Women of All Ages Are Putting Their Health Last. Let’s Change That.

Here’s the deal:  Preventive care (annual checkups, tests, vaccines) can save your life. It helps you catch issues early, often before you even have symptoms. The earlier you catch things, the better chance you have of staying alive. That feels like a worthy goal for all of us: At the very least, let’s try to stay alive. 

Most women know we’re supposed to get checked. We know we are supposed to get a physical, plus whatever boob squishing and pelvic swabbing is prescribed. And yet we… don’t. This screening-action gap, where you know the risk and still don’t get checked, is most evident in screenings for three types of cancer – breast, cervical and colorectal – which together kill more than 70,000 women in the U.S. each year. 

Why we’re like this

Nearly half of women have skipped preventive care services in the last year, according to a 2024 Gallup poll.

So many things get in the way of taking care of yourself. Some of the biggest? In that Gallup survey, women cited feeling overwhelmed, time constraints, and financial strain as major barriers. Unsurprisingly, moms were 17% more likely to have a hard time prioritizing their own health than women without young children. 

But it's not just the time factor. Now the women most likely to say they struggle to prioritize their health are the youngest — the women least likely to have dependents. While 70% of millennials and 68% of Gen X respondents said they have a hard time getting annual checkups, a whole 74% of Gen Z women said it’s tough to get to the doctor. Why? Thirty-nine percent of Gen Zers cited anxiety and concerns about pain.

Some of us are doing better than others. Black women are much more likely (79%) to say regular health screenings are very important to them (vs. 66% Asian women, 63% Hispanic women, and 58% White women), and much less likely (21%) to have skipped a screening (vs. 47% of Asian women, 41% of Hispanic women, and 47% of white women). That is amazing. For everyone who hasn’t gotten to a screening, what will move the needle?

Why you have to go to the doctor

When daily responsibilities and deadlines are closing in on you — or you just have way too much anxiety around checkups to deal — it’s very easy to tell yourself the Pap smear can wait. 

Friends, it can’t. To drive that home, let’s go to the research:

• Five of the top 10 leading causes of death in the US are, or are strongly associated with, preventable and treatable chronic diseases. 

• Breast cancer, when caught early, (stage 1) has a 99% five-year survival rate. When caught late (stage 4), that number drops to about 30%. 

• Cervical cancer, colorectal cancer, and heart disease all show significantly better outcomes when detected early through routine screenings. Each of these diseases are also being diagnosed more frequently among younger adults. 

How to get started

Since we are all overwhelmed and have no time and truly do not know if we can live through another call to the insurance company, start small. Fifty-eight percent of women said they’re not sure they know which screenings they need, so theSkimm built a Don’t Wait tool that eliminates the guesswork by highlighting exacly what needs to be checked based on our your age. Just choose your age bracket from the drop down menu, and you’ll see what you need. From there you can click through to providers in your area, and get tips on how to get the care you need and deserve.

One More Thing

We’re in a moment where there is so much we can’t control. But you can book an appointment that could save your life.