A Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that a growing number of women are forgoing screening tests, such as mammograms, and are not talking to their doctors about important health issues such as smoking, alcohol use, and calcium intake.
Alina Salganicoff, vice president and director of women's health policy at the nonprofit research organization, says in a statement, "The growth in health care costs has become a central women's health issue. A sizable share of women are falling through the cracks, either because they don't have insurance or even with insurance can't afford to pay for medical care or prescription drugs."
The telephone survey of 2,766 women age 18 and older was conducted in July through September of 2004 and Kaiser said it is nationally representative; 500 men were interviewed for a comparison.
The report also adds that women cannot afford prescription drugs, subsequently not filling them, skipping doses, and sharing medications.
Of the women with no health insurance, 67 percent said they delayed or missed medical care, including prescription drugs, because of cost. However, 27 percent of women with either private insurance, Medicare or Medicaid coverage, did the same thing.
The good news is that 80 percent of U.S. women reported they were in good health or better, but 38 percent said they had a chronic condition such as asthma or diabetes that required ongoing medical care.
"Fewer than half of all women say they have talked to a health care professional in the past three years about smoking (33 percent), alcohol use (20 percent), and calcium intake (43 percent), while just over half have talked about diet, exercise, and nutrition (55 percent)," the report reads.
Women 40 and above are advised to get regular mammograms, every year or two, but the rate of women aged 40 to 64 saying they actually got one fell from 73 percent in 2001 to 69 percent in 2004.
And 76 percent of women aged 18 to 64 got the recommended annual Pap test for cervical cancer, compared to 81 percent in 2001.
