You're listening to Well Now Slate's podcast on health and wellness.

I'm Maya Feller.

And I'm Kavita Patel.

Today, we're diving into a fascinating topic.

The science behind how women can gain social influence, particularly when it comes to health

and wellness.

This is an important area because research shows that women often face unique challenges in having their voices heard

and their expertise recognized, even in fields where they are highly qualified. For example,

a study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that women's ideas are often

overlooked in group settings, even when they have more expertise than their male counterparts.

I'm sure you can believe this, but can you believe this?

I mean, Kavita, I'm just shaking my head and I can believe it and I have experienced it and it can have

real consequences, especially in health care. For instance, in a 2018 study in the

proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in this journal, they found that female patients

were 32% less likely to survive a heart attack

when treated by a male physician compared to a female physician.

It really highlights why it's so crucial for women to be able to effectively advocate for

themselves and others in health and wellness contexts.

Yeah, Maya, and it's not, think about that.

It's a statistic around being a female patient, but then also having a leader who's a

physician, who's a female.

And we know that half of the medical schools in the country are women, but not necessarily

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