Correcting our collective oversight: Transforming women's health care beyond birth and motherhood.

Abstract

In this article, the authors provide a brief overview of our collective blind spot as a field and the failure to account for all of women's health across the lifespan. They align their recommendations based on two seminal reports focused on critiquing health care's narrow view on women's health and a call for a broader life course-oriented perspective. The Commonwealth Fund and Manatt's Transforming Primary Health Care for Women, Parts 1 and 2, serve as their guide. Written by Zephyrin et al. (2020a, 2020b), Part 1 is titled A Framework for Addressing Gaps and Barriers and Part 2 is titled The Path Forward. Aligned with the consensus of these two reports and other literature, they provide general guidance to open up their aperture for a broader approach to women's health and mental health issues across the lifespan. More specifically, as advocates for integrated care, they make an argument for sex-specific, sex-aware, and gender-sensitive care with a call to integrate a life course perspective into our educational work, workforce development strategies, and clinical thinking. They also make this call for awareness and action at a time in our national life where matters of equity and issues related to women's health are being challenged, eliminated, or erased. As scientist practitioners, policy influencers, fragmentation fighters, and equity advocates, they are called to remain equity-focused, context-sensitive, and innovate their ways into ensuring whole-person care regardless of social and political climate. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).