Equity Focus
Gender equality, human rights and health equity
Accelerating progress towards the global targets will require a more concerted effort to identify and address barriers to health equity, gender equality, and human rights in malaria responses worldwide.
Bridging gaps in malaria care through equity-focused action
Various factors—biological, environmental, social, structural and economic—heighten vulnerability to malaria and make it harder for certain groups to access treatment and preventive services. These factors often intersect, compounding an individual’s risk of a malaria infection and its consequences.
Addressing overlapping vulnerabilities requires data-driven policies and actions that are gender-responsive, equity-oriented, and grounded in human rights.
Malaria vulnerability is driven by a complex interplay of factors—biological, environmental, social, structural and economic.
In addition to focusing on those who are biologically and geographically more vulnerable to malaria, it is important to consider social, structural and economic factors that elevate the risk of infection or hamper access to essential health services. These multiple, intersecting factors disproportionately impact people living in poverty, Indigenous Peoples, refugees, migrants and persons with disabilities. They also contribute to harmful gender norms that affect men, boys, women and girls.
Beyond challenges in accessing education, many women and young girls face other barriers to improvements in both malaria outcomes and gender equality—such as limited malaria knowledge, restricted financial resources, and a lack of influence in household decision-making.
For example, malaria prevalence among children under five in sub-Saharan Africa is disproportionately higher in low-income households and declines with rising economic status. A child’s malaria risk may be further compounded by maternal education, among other factors.
Between 2020 and 2022, children under five whose mothers had no formal education or only a primary education faced twice the risk of malaria compared to children with mothers who had attained secondary or higher levels of education.
Ensuring health-related rights requires addressing overlapping vulnerabilities through data-driven policies and actions that are gender-responsive, equity-oriented, and grounded in human rights principles.
To improve responses worldwide and ensure they are reaching those most vulnerable to malaria, countries and their development partners should consider and pursue the following policies:
- Commit to primary health care (PHC) as the foundation of strong, equitable and efficient health systems. PHC includes 3 components:
- integrated health services to meet people’s health needs throughout their lives;
- addressing the broader determinants of health through multisectoral policy and action;
- empowering individuals, families and communities to take charge of their own health.
- Tackle the root causes of gender-based inequalities as well as other determinants of malaria. This involves challenging gender norms, power imbalances and discriminatory laws to achieve a “double dividend” of improved malaria outcomes and reduced inequity.
- Embed equity as guiding principle in antimalarial innovation and product discovery. End users of products—including women and girls, underserved populations and marginalized groups—should be engaged in the design of new tools and the assessment of technologies to ensure they are accessible and effectively meet the needs of those most at risk.
- Invest in better data systems to improve health outcomes, eliminate barriers to health services, and address inequities. This includes collecting and analysing disaggregated data to uncover insights on sex and high-risk groups, such as migrants, marginalized ethnic groups, and persons with disabilities, complemented by qualitative data to understand the social determinants of malaria and cultural dynamics.
Many governments, communities and organizations are already working to implement programmes that prioritize gender equality, health equity and human rights.
In March 2024, Ministers of Health of 11 high burden African countries committed to integrating malaria services into primary care as part of concerted action to end malaria deaths. In signing the Yaoundé Declaration, they pledged to address the root causes of malaria, including gender-related and financial barriers to accessing quality health services. They also recognized the need to confront the challenges posed by inadequate domestic funding and humanitarian crises, including conflicts, natural disasters, migration and climate change.
In Suriname, following the near-elimination of malaria in village communities, public health officials implemented a successful programme focused on reaching remaining at-risk populations with diagnosis, treatment and care, including undocumented migrants from Brazil working in gold mining. In 2023, Suriname reported zero indigenous cases of malaria for the second consecutive year.
Read about some of the other programmes undertaken by endemic countries and their development partners.
