January 7, 2026 – The World Economic Forum and the McKinsey Health Institute (MHI) today announced a new milestone in the global effort to close the women’s health gap: the Women’s Health Impact Tracking (WHIT) platform will transition to the Global Centre for Asian Women’s Health (GloW) at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS Medicine).
Developed by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with MHI, and shaped with input from more than 70 global experts, the WHIT is the first publicly accessible platform designed to measure progress in closing the women’s health gap across conditions and countries. On average, women spend 25 percent more time in poor health than men, underscoring the need for consistent, comparable data.
With its transition to NUS Medicine, the WHIT enters its next chapter: expanding to additional conditions, strengthening data quality, broadening national participation, and deepening use cases for policymakers, researchers, and clinical leaders. A key focus will be supporting ministries of health and partners in adopting shared indicators and enhancing routine reporting, building the foundations for long-term accountability.
Despite representing half the world’s population, women continue to experience a persistent health gap; one that carries profound human and economic consequences. Released in 2025, a flagship analysis from the World Economic Forum and MHI – The Blueprint to Close the Women’s Health Gap – outlines the actions needed to move from aspiration to measurable progress: count women, study women, care for women, include all women, and invest in women.
WHIT operationalizes this agenda by tracking progress across three drivers of the gap –Efficacy, Care Delivery, and Data – reflecting whether interventions work for women, whether women can access them, and whether the system measures what matters. Together, these indicators help leaders understand where progress is happening and where gaps remain.
“Women spend 25 percent more time in poor health than men, and closing that gap could unlock more than $1 trillion in economic value every year by 2040,” said MHI Global Leader Lucy Pérez. “The WHIT gives countries the transparent, comparable data they need to act – and with its expansion under NUS Medicine, leaders will be able to measure progress across more conditions, identify where interventions are working, and direct investments to the areas with the greatest impact for women’s health.”
Professor Chong Yap Seng, Lien Ying Chow Professor in Medicine, and Dean of NUS Medicine, said, “As stewards for the WHIT platform, NUS Medicine will build on its already strong foundations so that the platform can serve as a high quality, long-term resource for policymakers, clinicians, researchers, and the public. Advancing women’s health requires coordinated, international effort—to ensure that the issues affecting women are measured consistently and understood more clearly.”
Shyam Bishen, Head of the World Economic Forum’s Centre for Health and Healthcare said, “The transition of the Women’s Health Impact Tracking Platform to NUS GLoW is a powerful example of what can be achieved through partnership and innovation. Good data underlie good decisions. WHIT will gather more data on more conditions across more countries. This is a decisive step toward closing the women’s health gap and improving lives globally.”
Professor Cuilin Zhang, Director of the Global Centre for Asian Women’s Health (GloW), NUS Medicine, said, “Improving women’s health requires sustained attention to the conditions that affect women most, risk factors that lead to the conditions, effective methods that prevent or treat the conditions, and factors that shape our access to screening, diagnosis, and care. WHIT brings these issues into focus. In the next phase of WHIT, we are not just simply closing the health gaps, we are creating new possibilities for longer, happier and healthier lives. Investing in women’s health is worth it. Women’s health is an engine for growth, progress, and healthy longevity for this and future generations.”
The World Economic Forum and MHI examined nine conditions that together drive roughly one-third of the women’s health gap, including breast and cervical cancer, menopausal symptoms, migraine, endometriosis, and maternal health conditions. Closing the gap on these conditions alone could deliver 27 million additional disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) annually – equivalent to 2.5 extra healthy days per woman per year – and $400 billion in economic gains by 2040. As WHIT scales under NUS Medicine’s stewardship, these metrics will help countries benchmark progress, target investment, and accelerate improvements in women’s health worldwide.