TUFH 2026 Women’s Health Summit

The 2026 TUFH theme recognizes an urgent truth, today’s global health challenges climate shocks, inequities, rapidly evolving technologies, political instability, and shifting population needs are deeply interconnected. These challenges demand systemic, inclusive, community-rooted approaches that are both resilient to shocks and responsive to emerging priorities. Nowhere is this more evident than in the domain of women’s health, where structural inequalities, social determinants, and gendered barriers magnify vulnerabilities yet simultaneously offer opportunities for transformative change.

The Women’s Health Summit situates itself at the heart of this vision. Across the globe, women and girls continue to face persistent inequities: limited access to quality care, disproportionate caregiving burdens, heightened exposure to climate-related risks, and gender-based violence all of which are intensified by systemic power imbalances. By embedding women’s health into the wider TUFH conversation, this Summit aims to spotlight women as agents of change, not merely beneficiaries of services. It seeks to elevate community voices, strengthen local leadership, and promote gender-equitable innovations that are rooted in lived experience.

Anchored in the Filipino spirit of Bayanihan collective action for the common good the Women’s Health Summit will explore how gender-responsive design, inclusive technologies, workforce transformation, and equitable policy implementation can reshape health systems from the ground up.

Through four thematic tracks aligned with the TUFH 2026 conference and the Women Health Community of Practice (WHCoP), the Summit creates a platform for researchers, practitioners, policy leaders, educators, and community champions to advance bold ideas and actionable strategies for a more just and resilient future for women and girls.

THEME: Community-Driven Health Systems: Strengthening Local Solutions for Sustainable Impact (Women’s Health Focus)

Community-driven health systems remain the backbone of sustainable, equitable care and for women, community proximity often determines whether they can access services at all. This theme explores how local leadership, community–academic partnerships, and culturally grounded innovations can strengthen women’s health outcomes across diverse settings. Women, particularly in the Philippines and similar contexts, are central actors in community health: as mothers, caregivers, community organizers, community health workers, traditional birth attendants, and grassroots advocates. Yet their voices often go unheard in formal decision-making spaces.

This session will explore ways to strengthen community infrastructure, integrate Indigenous practices, build resilient local systems, and support transformative community innovations that improve women’s well-being across the life course. This track champions women as co architects of system resilience, reinforcing TUFH’s longstanding commitment to community engagement, social accountability, and equity.

Panel: Women at the Heart of Communities: Co Creating Resilient, Locally Led Health Systems
Panellists will examine community–academic partnerships, social accountability mechanisms, and locally led innovations that respond to women’s needs during crises, climate shocks, and everyday access barriers. Through case studies, dialogue, and shared learning, the session will surface strategies for co creating sustainable, community-rooted solutions that elevate women as co designers and decision-makers in health system transformation. Attendees will leave with actionable approaches to embed gender-responsive community leadership into people-centered, resilient health systems.

THEME Strengthening the Global Health Workforce: Recruitment, Retention, Capacity & Support (Women’s Health Focus) 

Women make up nearly 70% of the global health and care workforce yet they remain underpaid, undervalued, and underrepresented in leadership roles. This theme examines the gendered dimensions of workforce shortages and maldistribution, exploring how to build a fair, resilient, well-supported workforce capable of serving underserved communities.

Across the Philippines and comparable settings, women are frontline providers in rural health units, community clinics, midwifery programs, and hospital wards. However, they face unique challenges: unsafe working conditions, migration pressures, workplace discrimination, caregiving burdens, lack of career progression, and limited access to leadership pathways. This track integrates perspectives on brain drain, competency development, and workforce wellness, emphasizing policies that enable women to thrive in their professional roles.

Panel: Women Who Hold the System Together: Building, Retaining & Supporting a Gender-Responsive Workforce
The dialogue will explore recruitment and retention strategies, the alignment of education and service delivery, workforce wellness, rural deployment pathways, and gender-responsive competency development. It will also address global mobility trends, ethical recruitment, and protecting women health workers from burnout, discrimination, and violence.

With a focus on both local and global dimensions, participants will examine policies and innovations that empower women across the health workforce from community health volunteers and midwives to nurses, faculty, and emerging leaders. This session reinforces the message that women are not just frontline providers they are system architects, essential to advancing Universal Health Coverage and improving equity across communities.

Thursday, August 6, 2026