Globally, women live an average of three-and-a-half years longer than men, for a variety of genetic, hormonal, and societal reasons. But women tend to have shorter “health spans”—years of living in good health. Partly due to the perils they face in pregnancy and childbirth, they spend more of their lives unwell, and in poor countries millions of women and children die from preventable causes.
Addressing that disparity is the focus of the first major tranche of the $200 billion that Bill Gates has committed to improving global health via his Gates Foundation over the next two decades. The Microsoft co-founder announced in May that he would deploy most of the remainder of his massive wealth in an all-out effort to eradicate a slew of diseases that threaten the world’s poorest. Then, he said, the foundation that he began in 2000 with his then-wife, Melinda French Gates, will shut down.
