Women’s Health

Women's health refers to the broad spectrum of treatment and diagnosis of diseases and conditions that are specific to women and girls. Women’s health focuses on the wellbeing and quality of life for women and girls across the lifespan, including reproductive health, pregnancy, and conditions that affect women differently than men. Women experience many unique health issues, and screening for diseases and health issues like breast and cervical cancer, is key to identifying problems and making sure women and girls get the treatment they need.

This page provides data points and curated searches from OMH’s Knowledge Center library catalog related to women’s health within minority and tribal populations in the United States and its territories. The number of catalog records for each topic reflect the search results at the time of this page’s latest update.

American Indian/Alaska Native

According to the Indian Health Service (IHS), syphilis rates among American Indian and Alaska (AI/AN) people increased from 21.1 per 100,000 in 2019 to 58.2 per 100,000 in 2023. In 2023, AI/AN people represented 0.7% of live births, but they accounted for 4.6% of all congenital syphilis cases.1

Asian American

According to the CDC, the leading causes of death in Asian women in 2021 were cancer and heart disease.2

Black/African American

According to the CDC, Black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women.3 Multiple factors contribute to these disparities, such as variation in quality healthcare and underlying chronic conditions.

Hispanic/Latino

According to the NIH, Hispanic/Latina women typically have higher rates of health conditions, such as high blood pressure, overweight and obesity, and diabetes, that increase the risk of heart disease.4

Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander

According to the CDC’s data from the National Vital Statistics Reports, in 2022, fetal mortality rates were highest for Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (10.36%) compared to other races and ethnicities.5

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1 Indian Health Service. (n.d.). Syphilis statistics. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved September 23, 2025, from https://www.ihs.gov/sti/syphilis/syphilisstatistics/ (Back to footnote)

2 CDC. (2024). Leading causes of death in females. Retrieved September 23, 2025, from https://www.cdc.gov/womens-health/lcod/females.html (Back to footnote)

3 CDC. (2024). Working together to reduce Black maternal mortality. Retrieved September 23, 2025, from https://www.cdc.gov/womens-health/features/maternal-mortality.html (Back to footnote)

4 National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. (2024). The truth about Hispanic/Latina women and heart disease fact sheet. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/sites/default/files/publications/The_Truth_about_Hispanic_Latina_Women_and_Heart_Disease_Factsheet.pdf (Back to footnote)

5 Gregory, E. C. W., Valenzuela, C. P., & Hoyert, D. L. (2024). Fetal mortality: United States, 2022. National Vital Statistics Reports, 73(9). https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr73/nvsr73-09.pdf (Back to footnote)