Frontline health workers care for all of us. How can we show our care for them?

About one in three women will experience physical or sexual violence in her lifetime, and during crises, that increases to 70%. Even as they seek to serve others, health workers can face harassment in the workplace, and if their place of employment is far from where they live or their transportation is unreliable, they are vulnerable to harassment and violence in transit too.

The World Health Organization estimates that 8-38% of health workers face some form of physical violence in their careers, and many more are threatened with violence. A survey of medical staff in the United States found that 30% of women reported experiencing sexual violence in the workplace compared to just 4% of men.

Frontline health workers often put themselves at great personal risk to care for their patients, so it’s critical that they have the health care access they need for themselves, too.

Gendered challenges and power imbalances

All cadres of health workers – whether they be paid or unpaid, formal or informal – need to have adequate, well-fitting Personal Protective Equipment and should be prioritized for immunizations and health services to stay safe from the diseases they seek to treat.

They should also have the agency and ability to make informed health decisions for themselves, particularly when it comes to their sexual and reproductive health.

Over 218 million women around the world have unmet needs for family planning, and with such a high percentage of frontline health workers being women, that unmet need directly impacts their ability to do their work.

When people can choose when and whether to have children, they have healthier babies, they reduce their risk of maternal mortality and pregnancy complications, and they increase their ability to participate in the workforce, get an education, and contribute to their families and communities.

Addressing the gendered challenges and power imbalances women face in their communities goes a long way towards improving their own lives.

And with women making up so much of the health workforce, it also increases their ability to better the lives and health of the people in the communities they serve.

Improving health workers’ conditions in the workplace is critical for ensuring that decades of investments and progress in global health are sustained, but efforts to support health workers are incomplete if they do not support the lives they live outside of the workplace, too.

What can we do?

Frontline health workers care for all of us. How can we show our care for them?

• Increase frontline health workers’ wages

• Prioritize gender parity in health care leadership roles

• Reduce unpaid care burdens by implementing comprehensive family leave and affordable care support for health workers

• Create and enforce mechanisms to prevent and address harassment and violence against health workers

• Improve access to sexual and reproductive health and to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene for women health workers.

The best way to celebrate International Women’s Day is to give women – especially women health workers – our support and recognition on this day, and every day throughout the year.

In the words of Michelle Obama, “Communities, and countries, and ultimately the world are only as strong as the health of their women.”

Corinne Paul is the Global Health Policy Advocate for CARE USA. Aapta Garg is the Senior Gender Policy Advocate for CARE USA.

This post originally appeared on the Frontline Health Workers Coalition Blog.