GreenShield highlights stark gaps in women’s health, with women spending 24% more of their lives in poor health and representing 70% of medically unexplained symptoms
For decades, women’s health in Canada has often been approached in piecemeal fashion—mental health in one place, hormonal health in another, reproductive life stages somewhere else. Yet research increasingly shows how interconnected these experiences are, especially in the workplace.
Canadian women spend 24 per cent more of their lives in poor health. Seventy per cent of patients with medically unexplained symptoms are women. And as many as one in five Canadian women experience a mental illness linked to a reproductive life stage. Beyond the personal impact, the economic implications are significant: closing gaps in women’s health could contribute an estimated $37 billion to Canada’s GDP by 2040.
These disparities help explain why women are a priority population for GreenShield. As the country’s only national non-profit health care and insurance organization, GreenShield operates in service of its social mission. Rather than distributing profits to shareholders, the organization reinvests its excess earnings and redeploys its services to improve the health and well-being of Canadians who are too often underserved by traditional health care and insurance systems.
Against this backdrop, GreenShield has been adapting its approach to better support the evolving needs of women across Canada by working alongside community partners, clinicians and researchers who have long been advancing this work.
In 2021, this commitment led to the launch of GreenShield Cares’ Women’s Mental Health program. The program provides free, no cost mental health support for women, integrating GreenShield’s mental health services with expertise from with women-focused community organizations to strengthen and tailor care, particularly for women from racialized or marginalized communities. Since its launch, nearly 200,000 women have accessed free, culturally informed mental health services and resources through the program.
The program offers up to five hours of no‑cost virtual therapy, a complimentary one‑year subscription to internet‑based cognitive behavioural therapy, access to a mental health and wellness library, and personalized therapist matching that considers intersectionality and lived experience. By ensuring culturally sensitive offerings and removing cost as a barrier, the program was designed to reach women who might otherwise go without support.
These supports were shaped in collaboration with organizations including the Canadian Women’s Foundation, Black Mental Health Canada, the Black Women’s Institute for Health, and Strong Minds Strong Kids. These partnerships played a critical role in ensuring the care offered was culturally informed, relevant, and grounded in the lived experiences of the communities being served. Based on learnings from the GreenShield Cares program, this work has also informed and strengthened GreenShield’s broader mental health offering.
In 2025, GreenShield and Mental Health Research Canada published a report examining women’s mental health across life stages, from adolescence to caregiving to aging—reinforcing how needs shift during major transitions. Insights from this work informed GreenShield’s next steps, highlighting the importance of addressing women’s health more holistically. Mental health challenges are often closely linked with hormonal changes and life stages, yet care models have traditionally treated these needs separately.
In 2025, the organization introduced a Personalized Hormonal Health Program for its members, through its integrated health care and insurance ecosystem. The nurse-led program supports people of all genders experiencing hormonal changes, including perimenopause, menopause and andropause—and integrates hormonal care with GreenShield’s mental health services, pharmacy support and telemedicine. The expansion reflects growing recognition that hormonal health influences energy, mood, sleep and workplace performance, and that fragmented care models often leave people without coordinated support.
In many workplaces, the effects of unmet women’s health needs surface gradually through increased absenteeism, burnout, disengagement, or employees quietly pushing through symptoms without the support they need. When care is fragmented or difficult to navigate, women often end up managing complex health concerns alongside professional responsibilities, sometimes without clear guidance or coordinated resources. Offering integrated approaches to care help employers play a meaningful role in supporting their employees’ well-being, strengthening retention, and contributing to a more resilient workforce over time.
GreenShield’s commitment to women continues in 2026, with GreenShield Cares expanding its focus beyond women’s mental health to women’s health more broadly. Through a national call for applications, 14 diverse Women’s Health community partners were selected to collaborate on designing and delivering culturally relevant solutions addressing gaps in diagnosis, access and navigation support.
“There is no single solution to the health challenges Canadians face,” says Mandy Mail, GreenShield’s Executive Vice President, Head of GreenShield Cares. “Meaningful progress requires care models that recognize the realities of women’s lives, the intersections between mental and hormonal health, and the importance of removing barriers so support is accessible when and where it’s needed.”
For employers, the message is clear: supporting women’s health across ages and stages is essential to building resilient, equitable and productive workplaces—and it’s a responsibility shared across sectors, not carried by any one organization alone.
