Don’t leave this patient population behind.
I recall, as a little girl, sitting with my grandmother—Honey, we called her—in her kitchen while she cooked breakfast and listened to Paul Harvey. I always waited for his famous line, “Now you know the rest of the story.” She was a pillar in our family, working full-time while helping my mom raise my four brothers and me, despite having a torn rotator cuff and chronic back pain.
I think of Honey when I think of women’s health. It’s usually portrayed as reproductive health, but in reality, women’s health starts at birth and extends throughout life. The average reproductive lifespan for U.S. women is 36.1 years, but an American woman’s life expectancy is around 80 years. That’s why research must address women’s health into middle and old age. The world is catching up; in 2024, the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research aimed to “change how our nation approaches and funds women’s health research.”
How are older women doing?
As women age, they face multiple health risks while balancing societal demands, such as work and caregiving. According to HealthinAging.org, older women are more likely than older men to experience chronic health conditions, cognitive decline, and difficulties with daily activities. Hormonal changes can heighten the risk of coronary artery disease, bone loss, and urinary tract infections. Many older women also endure undertreated chronic pain as a result of several health conditions. Even with mandates that require the inclusion of women, clinical trials frequently don’t include older women. Many older women struggle to find healthcare providers with expertise in their unique needs.
Honey died unexpectedly from colorectal cancer that spread rapidly throughout her body. I now know there were missed opportunities to improve her quality of life, receive guidance about interventions, access screenings, and identify warning signs.
Older women like Honey continue to fall through the cracks, either because of a lack of interventions connecting them to existing care or because we fail to include them in research. Consequently, we’re less effective in addressing their unique biological, psychosocial, and mental health needs. We must commit to prioritizing older women’s needs to deliver the attention, care, and resources they deserve.
Where do we go from here?
As a nurse and a scientist, I investigate pain in older women. In 2020, my colleagues and I published findings, which show that many women aging with chronic, disabling pain also experience depressive symptoms. Pain and depressive symptoms frequently co-occur, but healthcare providers typically treat them separately.
We then began tailoring a proven depression intervention (Get Busy Get Better: Helping Older Adults Beat the Blues) to create a pain and depression intervention for older Black women. Our results, published in 2023, showed remarkable improvements in depressive symptom scores. The March 2025 issue of Contemporary Clinical Trials published the latest update.
Nurses, this is personal. Among U.S. nurses, 89% are women and 47.5% are age 50 years or older. It’s not only our patients, mothers, and grandmothers who deserve better care—it’s us.
The work my colleagues and I published, and interventions like it, demonstrate the impact of nurse-led clinical studies tailored to older women. I urge nurses in the roles of policymakers, clinicians, researchers, and educators to take a life course approach to women’s health; make the health of older women a priority.
Women’s health isn’t a snapshot in time. It’s time to tell the rest of the story.
Janiece Taylor is an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in Baltimore, Maryland.
American Nurse Journal. 2025; 20(5). Doi: 10.51256/ANJ052552
References
Appiah D, Nwabuo CC, Ebong IA, Wellons MF, Winters SJ. Trends in age at natural menopause and reproductive life span among US women, 1959-2018. JAMA. 2021;325(13):1328-30. doi:10.1001/jama.2021.0278
Health Resources & Services Administration. Detailed description of distribution of registered nurses by age. 2022. bhw.hrsa.gov/data-research/access-data-tools/national-sample-survey-registered-nurses/detailed-description-rn-by-age
HealthinAging.org. Tip sheet: Good health in later life for older women. June 2019. healthinaging.org/tools-and-tips/tip-sheet-good-health-later-life-older-women
Hrustic A. Why women in pain are still begging doctors to listen. PS. January 30, 2025. popsugar.com/health/womens-pain-gap-49425196
O’Neill A. Life expectancy of women at birth in the United States 2012 to 2022. Statista. November 22, 2024. www.statista.com/statistics/263736/life-expectancy-of-women-in-the-united-states
Taylor JL, Clair CA, Gitlin LN, et al. Acceptability and feasibility of a pain and depressive symptoms management intervention in middle-aged and older African American women. Innovation Aging. 2023;7(10):igad096. doi:10.1093/geroni/igad096
Taylor JL, Clair CA, Lee JW, et al. A protocol for a wait list control trial of an intervention to improve pain and depressive symptoms among middle-aged and older African American women. Contemp Clin Trials. 2023;132:107299. doi:10.1016/j.cct.2023.107299
Taylor JL, Drazich BF, Roberts L, et al. Pain in low-income older women with disabilities: A qualitative descriptive study. J Women Aging. 2020;32(4):402-23. doi:10.1080/08952841.2020.1763895
The White House. The White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research. 2024. bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/womenshealthresearch
