Why more diverse voices can drive change and rebuild trust in healthcare

To enact meaningful change in health equity, it is not only crucial to address factors such as social determinants of health and access to healthcare but to better reflect underserved communities in the systems working to improve their health.

This means change for the companies developing new medicines to improve and extend lives, the hospitals staffed with doctors and nurses connecting with patients and the universities shaping the next generation of medical providers for our communities. To sustain that change, they must rebuild trust too.

Evidence has shown us how diverse voices can lead to more effective solutions and improved health outcomes, but we know inequities remain. Women are more likely to die after a heart attack than men, black women are still more likely than white women to die from breast cancer and people living in rural communities have worse health than those living in urban areas.

This, amidst a backdrop of geopolitical tensions, growing mistrust in healthcare and ever-changing health needs around the world, underscores the need to make this inclusivity a continued priority. It must become an even stronger thread woven into the many facets of healthcare to ensure the sector weathers the times to come.

Meeting the needs of underserved patients means placing an emphasis on inclusion across the companies making new medicines, from research and development to commercial and legal teams.

Such a workforce can drive innovation and create business value. It enables the development of transformative medicines that satisfy unmet needs, while avoiding the traps of groupthink to encourage more creative solutions to tough problems.

It’s simply a more well-rounded, confident team, who uncover blind spots by considering different angles. This allows medicines to be developed with greater sensitivity to the lived needs, preferences and concerns of people based on their gender, geography and backgrounds.

Inclusion also builds stronger relationships between healthcare providers and patients, ensuring that the voices of those often overlooked are heard and prioritized, which rebuilds trust. Rebuilding trust means improved communication, which can lead to more accurate diagnoses and more personalized treatments.

A session at the 2025 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum will address an important question: what innovations are needed to make the health of women – who spend 25% more of their lives in poor health compared to men – a lasting global priority?

Prioritizing gender diverse voices to drive those innovations is one smart approach. But we still have work to do: while women represented 41% of all active researchers in STEM, according to 2022 data, minorities only make up 9%. The number of black women who work in medicine and the pharmaceutical industry also remains disproportionately low.

Unfortunately, historically marginalized groups are still underrepresented in clinical trials, in medical professions and at decision-making junctures, which can contribute to healthcare disparities and lead to mistrust.

There are programmes around the world working to turn this around, from the World Health Organization’s Global Health Equity Network's work to address trial diversity to
Female Quotient’s efforts to advance gender equality across industries, including
healthcare, and address the gender and racial bias in medical research.

The Novartis US Foundation’s Beacon of Hope commitment is another example of work currently underway to help address a lack of representation. Launched in 2021 in collaboration with historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the US, the programme tackles deep-rooted disparities in health and education that have disproportionately affected marginalized communities.

Beacon of Hope is working toward increasing clinical trial participation by establishing clinical trial centres of excellence so medical innovations improve health for all patients. The programme also supports new research into health disparities and building the next generation of leaders across the healthcare system.

The 10-year, $50 million commitment is dedicated to addressing systemic disparities in health outcomes and creating a healthcare system where diverse patients see themselves in the people and infrastructure designed to serve them.

We must stay unapologetically bold and purposeful together, especially as we head into an increasingly complex and digitized world enabled by powerful new tools, such as artificial intelligence (AI), that could either strengthen our efforts or drive communities even further apart.

Without diverse voices to ensure algorithms and datasets are balanced, bias can be baked in and worsen inequities. As these tools become increasingly more complex and become mainstays, it will be harder to weed out biases and establish best practices.

We must build – and update – inclusive datasets, amplify and upskill the diverse workers who can design and deploy these tools and continue to push for transparency across the sector.

The path to greater equity isn’t easy, but it’s one we must continually acknowledge and walk together for the long term, embracing and amplifying voices along the way if we want to affect sustainable change.