Depoliticizing and Prioritizing Comprehensive Women's Health: Jessica Horwitz, MPH, FNP-C

Jessica Horwitz, MPH, FNP-C, chief clinical officer at Tia Health, discussed strategies for leveraging National Women's Health Week to advocate for comprehensive women's health care, emphasizing the need to depoliticize this field of health care.

She highlighted the importance of destigmatizing pelvic floor health and integrating mental health into primary care. She called for prioritizing women's health to improve overall health outcomes and reduce the need for intensive interventions.

This transcript was lightly edited for clarity; captions were auto-generated.

Transcript

Women's Health Week 2025 arrives at a time when discussions around women's health are highly politicized. How can Women's Health Week 2025 be leveraged as a platform to advocate for policies that support and expand access to comprehensive women's health care?

I think the thing that comes to mind mostly is how we can actually depoliticize this topic as it relates to women's health, and recognize that the issue of improving comprehensive care for women that enables women to live full, vibrant, healthy lives shouldn't be a political topic.

Too often, women's health is broken down into body parts or conditions, and sometimes those body parts being politicalized body parts. The reality is that's the thing that actually is going to level the playing field is bringing women's holistic picture of their health together to improve health outcomes. That's something that we can all universally align on across the political spectrum. What I would love to see is a removal of the politicalization and a move toward comprehensive care for women that actually keeps them healthy throughout their entire life.

This year's theme for Women's Health Week is "Know Your Pelvic Floor." What role can public health play in destigmatizing conversations around pelvic floor health and normalizing seeking care for related issues?

As a mom of 3 daughters, as a person who has birthed 3 babies, and as a women's health professional, I feel like the fact that we are even including the pelvic floor and talking about it is a huge step in destigmatizing. The reality is, is all humans, regardless of sex or gender, have a pelvic floor. For too long, there has been sort of shame and stigma around what it means to address women's pelvic floor. The reality is, these are a group of muscles that are deeply responsible for a lot of our function and well-being, and so super cool, frankly, that this is the theme of this year's Women's Health Week.

I think that what it tells us is that there's a move to actually destigmatize all sorts of things in women's health that for too often have been stigmatized. We start to break down barriers by starting to normalize the conversation and if even one person feels seen and feels motivated to talk to their clinician, or talk to a therapist that they may know, because this is the theme of the week, that's a win.

It has the potential to have a lot more of a significant impact beyond the pelvic floor. I think as we start to normalize other stigmatized things related to, whether it's mental health or whether it's women's weight and body image, or all of these places that we've held too much angst and stigma, when we're all in this together.