Melinda French Gates Is Taking on the Women’s Health Gap. Here’s How

Chasing Life

CNN

Nutrition, Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.5 • 8K Ratings

🗓️ 5 June 2026

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For a lot of women, getting the right care at the right time can make all the difference... but that doesn’t always happen. Too often, women’s health is underfunded, under-researched, or under-treated. Melinda French Gates joins Sanjay to explain why women are still being overlooked and why midlife, menopause, and maternal and reproductive health often fall through the cracks. She also breaks down her new funding push – and what smarter, more targeted investment could mean for women’s lives. Our show was produced by Andrea Kane and Jennifer Lai. Video Editor: Ross Helman with support by Jasmine Brooks.Medical Writer: Andrea Kane Showrunner: Dan BloomTechnical Director: Dan Dzula Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, welcome to Chasing Life. We got a very special episode for you today, but I want to start off by reminding you of something about my own life. You have no doubt heard me say many times that I am the father, proud father of three daughters. They are some of the most important people in my life alongside my wife, my mom, and even my mother-in-law.
0:22.7	I am surrounded by these strong, powerful, amazing women in my life.
0:27.2	And they provided so many things for me, love, companionship, sometimes even a stern lesson or two.
0:34.3	But here's the thing that might surprise you.
0:36.5	Despite representing half the population,
0:39.6	women are often facing a lot of inequality when it comes to many things in our society,
0:45.2	especially health and health care. Get this. Women spend 25% more of their lives in debilitating
0:53.3	health as compared to men. They're just sicker, and they're
0:57.1	more often sicker at pivotal times in their life. That's something we're going to talk about today.
1:02.6	And despite that, they are often underrepresented when it comes to finding treatments for the things
1:08.6	that ail them. Women get overlooked and underserved
1:12.2	too often when it comes to their health. So today we're going to talk about it. We're going to
1:16.6	talk about it with someone who knows a lot about this issue and is trying to do something about it.
1:21.9	Melinda French Gates. She's a philanthropist. She's going to be making an important announcement on the podcast today
1:28.6	regarding her organization pivotal. She's going to be giving a lot of money away. We're talking
1:33.7	hundreds of millions of dollars away to try and address some of the concerns that you're
1:38.3	going to hear about today, some of the concerns that maybe you've already dealt with in your
1:42.4	own life. This is money that is earmarked specifically for women's health.
1:47.8	In the reproductive years, during menopause,
1:50.7	and all throughout their lives when it comes to mental health.
1:54.6	The critical sort of care that women need at the critical times in their life.
1:59.6	We're going to talk about who's going to get that money,
	...

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