Vision
Empowering women's healthcare decisions through information and community building.
Mission
WHICKED (Women's Health Information Center
- Knowledge Empowerment Decisionmaking) is dedicated to helping women navigate the complex landscape of modern healthcare by providing information and creating a community so they have the knowledge and support to ask for the treatment they need.
About
Healthcare, like many sectors, has been affected by gender-based inequalities, which significantly impact women's health and well-being. More than 10 years after the Affordable Care Act (ACA), certain disparities remain. For instance, while women earn on average 18% less than men in the work force, they have to shoulder 21% higher healthcare cost than men every year. As a result, many women avoid getting necessary testing or treatments, even when such have been recommended by their doctors. Women also experience a more frequent dismissal of their concerns by healthcare providers. This is especially true for vulnerable groups, such as women with prior health conditions or younger women, who often don't have the resources and skills to speak up for themselves.
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Given all this, women need to be able to understand their healthcare better, so they can advocate for their needs and allocate their resources purposefully. WHICKED is dedicated to making this path easier by creating a supportive community where women can seek information, share experiences, and form opinions.
Information Platform
On our online information platform, we provide basic information about different health conditions, available treatments and advantages or disadvantages of different treatment options. We encourage our users to take an active part in building this platform and point us towards diseases or treatments that they would like to see covered. Our ideal is to collaborate with both patients and a broad variety of healthcare providers to keep our information relevant, accurate and up-to-date. While we cannot and do not intend to replace medical advice patients obtain directly from their healthcare providers, it is our vision to provide our users with enough overview and context to walk into those discussions confidently and equipped with the knowledge to ask the right questions.
Mentorship Program
To foster community building between our users, we have designed an online mentorship program. Both women with general health-related questions and women with specific health issues can sign up for the mentorship program. They will then be assigned to a group or an individual mentoring partner. Ideally, we try to match mentors and mentees who have undergone similar or complimentary healthcare journeys. While sharing your story with friends can be a good starting point, creating a support system with other women, who have gone through similar experiences, opens up an avenue for new input and more informed guidance. It is our conviction that "no woman is an island" and that we can all learn from, inspire and support each other in our individual paths.