What my LinkedIn analytics taught me about women’s health bias

A few weeks ago, I shared a post on LinkedIn about endometriosis. It was powerful, personal, and grounded in a condition that affects around one in ten women. 

It also significantly underperformed compared to my other posts – including one featuring a nostalgic throwback trend featuring a photo of me as a baby.

At face value, that’s easy to dismiss. Algorithms reward light, familiar, shareable content. We all know that. But it raised a more uncomfortable question: Are we still deprioritising women’s health? Or are the systems we rely on doing it for us?

Visibility vs. Prioritisation

The government has recently released its Renewed Women’s Health Strategy committing to delivering sustainable improvements in women’s health – and, as importantly, create a space for women to have a voice.

There is no denying that the conversation around women’s health has gained real ground over the past decade. Topics such as menopause, for example, have moved from the margins into mainstream, driven by advocates, media and significant changes to policy. But increased visibility doesn’t automatically translate into equal prioritisation. While we’re talking more, we’re not necessarily acting enough. Especially when it comes to more intimate, complex areas of women’s health.

Endometriosis is not a niche issue. It’s a chronic, often debilitating condition that affects millions of women globally, and yet it still takes years to diagnose, receives limited research funding and remains widely misunderstood. Hence my recent trip to parliament to support the work of The Endometriosis Foundation in bringing this chronic condition further up the health agenda.

According to the McKinsey Health Institute, closing the women’s health gap could unlock $1 trillion in economic opportunity annually. That figure alone should be enough to shift attention. But awareness, investment and innovation still lag behind. Which suggests this isn’t just a knowledge gap, it’s a prioritisation problem.

Emerging evidence shows that bias in health data and technology is not just historical, it’s being replicated in modern systems. Reporting from The Guardian highlights how AI tools used in public services have been found to downplay women’s health concerns. When algorithms are trained on incomplete or biased datasets, they don’t just reflect inequality, they scale it.

That extends beyond diagnostics and into something closer to home for many of us – visibility. Because whether we like it or not, platforms shape which conversations are amplified and which are quietly deprioritised. Not all health conversations are treated equally. We’re comfortable talking about wellness in broad, positive terms – but when it comes to more complex or “uncomfortable” topics such as menstrual health, fertility challenges, chronic pain conditions and hormones – the tone shifts. 

They’re less visible, less engaged with and less prioritised. Whether that’s driven by audience behaviour, platform dynamics or lingering societal discomfort, the result is the same: silence where there should be conversation

"Are we reinforcing the silence, or helping to break it?"

This is where brands have an opportunity to lead. Because while platforms and systems evolve slowly, culture can shift much faster, especially when brands are willing to be brave. We’ve seen this first-hand in our work with Bio-Kult on the launch of its Women’s Intimate Flora product, partnering with women’s health advocate Ashley James. This wasn’t just about introducing a product. It was about creating space for more open, honest conversations around intimate health - topics that are still too often wrapped in stigma or silence. And importantly, it showed that when you approach these conversations with credibility and care, audiences do engage.

If we want to move the dial on women’s health, it’s not enough to rely on awareness days or occasional campaigns. It requires consistent, visible conversations with balanced and represented data. It also requires a willingness to challenge – and with that, inspire meaningful change.

My LinkedIn post didn’t perform as well as a baby photo. That might seem trivial but it’s also telling. Because if even our professional platforms struggle to prioritise conversations about conditions like endometriosis, it raises a bigger question for all of us working in health, communications and marketing… are we reinforcing the silence, or helping to break it?