Shaping a new approach to women’s health and wellbeing in Kent & Medway
Women’s health is about far more than healthcare.
It is about equality, opportunity, safety, dignity and participation. It is about the social, economic and environmental conditions that shape women’s lives and influence their health and wellbeing.
For too many women, health outcomes are shaped not only by access to healthcare, but also by poverty, housing, employment, migration, language, caring responsibilities, domestic abuse, social isolation, discrimination and unequal access to information, support and opportunity.
At Diversity House, we believe that improving women’s health requires us to look beyond individual conditions and services and understand the whole person, the whole life and the whole community.
That means placing women’s voices, lived experience and community insight alongside data, research and evidence.
At the heart of this approach is the Women’s Health & Wellbeing Index for Kent & Medway—an important step towards building a richer understanding of women’s health and wellbeing and translating evidence into meaningful action.
Lived experience is evidence. Women’s voices are expertise. Partnership turns insight into change.
Putting women’s voices at the centre
Women are experts in their own lives.
Their experiences can reveal what statistics alone cannot: where services are working, where barriers persist, why inequalities exist and what needs to change.
Listening to women is therefore not an additional consideration. It is fundamental to understanding women’s health.
This principle is already embedded in Diversity House’s work.
Our research into perinatal inequalities, undertaken on behalf of NHS Kent and Medway, captured the experiences of 64 women from BAME and other underserved communities in Swale who had accessed maternity services. The research brought forward valuable insight into women’s experiences of care and helped inform improvements in maternity services.
For us, this represents more than consultation.
It is about recognising lived experience as a meaningful source of knowledge and ensuring that women are not simply recipients of services, but contributors to the evidence, the conversation and the solutions.
A whole-person approach to women’s wellbeing
Women’s health does not exist in isolation.
Physical health is connected to mental wellbeing. Wellbeing is connected to financial security. Financial security is connected to employment, housing and opportunity. Experiences of discrimination, isolation or violence can affect every aspect of a woman’s life.
This is why Diversity House’s Centre for Women and Girls’ Innovation & Empowerment takes an intersectional, trauma-informed and community-led approach.
Its work brings together wellbeing, empowerment, leadership, digital inclusion, employability, community participation and access to support—recognising that sustainable improvements in health and wellbeing require more than a single intervention.
The principle is simple:
We cannot improve women’s health without understanding women’s lives.
From supporting women to enabling women to lead
Our approach is not about doing things for women. It is about creating the conditions for women to participate, influence, lead and shape change.
Through our work with women and girls, Diversity House creates opportunities for learning, mentoring, leadership, wellbeing, community connection and participation. Women are encouraged to contribute to the development of activities and to influence how support is designed and delivered.
This matters because sustainable change happens when communities have a genuine voice in the decisions that affect them.
Women should be recognised not only as service users, but as co-designers, leaders, advocates and partners in change.
That shift, from supporting women to enabling women to shape the systems around them—is central to our vision.
The Women’s Health & Wellbeing Index: bringing the picture together
The Women’s Health & Wellbeing Index for Kent & Medway represents the next stage in this journey.
Its ambition is to bring together three essential dimensions of understanding:
DATA
What the evidence tells us
Data helps us identify patterns, disparities and inequalities, providing an essential foundation for understanding women’s health and wellbeing.
LIVED EXPERIENCE
What women tell us
Women’s experiences reveal the realities behind the data—what is working, where barriers persist and how inequalities are experienced in everyday life.
COMMUNITY INSIGHT
What communities see and understand
Community organisations and networks can provide trusted connections to women and girls, helping bring forward experiences and perspectives that may otherwise remain less visible.
DATA + LIVED EXPERIENCE + COMMUNITY INSIGHT
A more complete picture of women’s health and wellbeing
Bringing these three perspectives together can help us move beyond simply asking what is happening to asking the questions that matter:
What are women experiencing?
Where are inequalities greatest?
Who is being heard and who is still being missed?
What are women telling us about their health and wellbeing?
And, most importantly, what needs to change?
The Index is therefore about more than measurement.
It is about creating a stronger foundation for understanding, conversation, collaboration, decision-making and action across Kent & Medway.
Why this matters for Kent & Medway
Women and girls are not one homogeneous group.
Age, ethnicity, disability, income, geography, migration status, family circumstances and many other factors can intersect to shape health and wellbeing.
A single picture of “women’s health” can therefore conceal significant differences in experience and outcome.
This is where community insight becomes particularly important.
Community organisations can build trust, reach women whose experiences may otherwise remain less visible, and create spaces where people feel able to speak openly about the issues affecting their lives.
Diversity House has long worked directly with disadvantaged and underserved communities in Kent and Medway, using community engagement, research, advocacy and partnership to understand needs and strengthen access to support.
The Index provides an opportunity to build on that experience, connecting evidence with the realities of women’s lives and helping ensure that diverse voices are visible in the wider conversation about women’s health.
From conversation to action
The importance of listening to women was reinforced at the HEDUCA Women, Girls & Youth Conference 2026, themed “Empowered Voices, Healthy Future.”
The conference brought together healthcare professionals, researchers, community leaders, specialist organisations and women with lived experience to explore how women’s voices can shape healthier futures.
The message was clear: we must listen to women, recognise the wider determinants of health and ensure that lived experience informs services, solutions and decision-making. But conversation alone is not enough.
Insight must lead to action.
That requires meaningful collaboration between women and girls, communities, health and care professionals, public health, researchers, local authorities, voluntary and community organisations and other partners.
No single organisation can address the full picture of women’s health.
Leading through partnership
At Diversity House, we believe meaningful change is built through partnership.
Our role is to listen, connect, convene, gather evidence, amplify community voices and help turn insight into action.
The Women’s Health & Wellbeing Index brings this philosophy into sharper focus.
It creates an opportunity to strengthen the conversation about women’s health across Kent & Medway and to ask not only:
“What does the data tell us?”
but also:
“What are women telling us?”
Because both matter.
A healthier future starts with listening
The future of women’s health cannot be built around women without women.
It must recognise the diversity of women’s experiences, understand the inequalities that shape their lives, value lived experience as evidence and create meaningful opportunities for women to influence the decisions that affect them.
That is the approach Diversity House is committed to developing.
Women’s voices. Better evidence. Healthier futures.
Through the Women’s Health & Wellbeing Index for Kent & Medway, we are working towards a stronger and more inclusive evidence base, one that can help communities, organisations and decision-makers better understand women’s experiences and turn knowledge into action.
Because better evidence should lead to better decisions.
Better decisions should lead to better services.
And better services should help create healthier, fairer futures for women and girls across Kent & Medway.
Explore the Women’s Health & Wellbeing Index for Kent & Medway
Together, we can make women’s voices visible, strengthen the evidence and turn insight into action—building healthier futures for women, girls and communities across Kent & Medway.
.