What is a Well Woman Exam?
"I want women everywhere to know that real love means putting yourself first and prioritizing your annual screenings.” - Mary J. Blige
Specially designed for a woman’s needs, the exam is part discussion and part physical exam. It also involves any testing, counseling, or immunizations required depending on your age, lifestyle, and medical history. Your Well Woman Exam is your personal health roadmap. It’s a way to help you stay healthy for the ones you love and care for. Your Well Woman exam can make a world of difference between living and thriving at your personal best.
How Does a Well Woman Exam Make a Difference?
Early detection through health screenings is the first step to the best treatments and outcomes. A Well Woman exam will provide screenings for breast, colon, and cervical cancers; osteoporosis; heavy periods and other health conditions you may be concerned about.1
Your medical tests can put you in a vulnerable position and waiting for results can be unsettling. But the relief from ultimately knowing, from being sure of what’s going on with your body, is what makes screening and testing so important. And keeping to a schedule as guided by your healthcare provider (usually annually) is part of the commitment you should make to yourself.
After all, your health is your wealth.
What to Expect at Your Well Woman Exam
Depending on your age, the Well Woman exam may cover different health topics. Let’s take a look at what you can expect.
Your Health is a Priority
Checkups Improve Women’s Health
While most women (88%) agree that checkups help improve health, 40% didn’t see a doctor last year. Worldwide, 61% of women — more than 1.5 million — didn’t get tested in the in the past 12 months.2
Impact of COVID-19 on Cancer Screenings
A staggering number of women in the U.S. missed their annual breast and cervical cancer screenings during the COVID-19 pandemic.3
50% Did Not Schedule Screenings
A Hologic survey revealed that nearly 50 percent of the 1,000 U.S. females surveyed have not seen a medical professional for a health screening in the past year.4
Who is Hologic?
As a world leader in women’s health, we recognize the impact a woman’s health has on her, her family, and her community. With groundbreaking technology at the core, our innovations are designed to achieve exceptional clinical results, making it possible to detect, diagnose, and treat illnesses and other health conditions earlier and more effectively, saving and improving the quality of lives for millions of women.
To ensure that women’s health is prioritized, we created the Hologic Global Women’s Health Index and Project Health Equality (see below) to drive home the importance of women’s health, screenings, and access to care.
By helping to keep women healthy, we help keep the world healthy.
- Get Your Well Woman Visit Every Year. https://health.gov/myhealthfinder/topics/everyday-healthy-living/sexual-health/get-your-Well Woman-visit-every-year
- Hologic’s Global Women’s Health Index 2020. https://hologic.womenshealthindex.com/en?atr=false
- COVID-19 impact on screening test volume through the National Breast and Cervical Cancer early detection program, January–June 2020, in the United States,” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743521001432
- The Well Woman exam survey of 1,000 U.S. females, conducted by Hologic, Inc. via Pollfish, January 2022.
The content in this piece is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be medical advice. Please contact your medical professional for specific advice regarding your health and treatment. This information is not intended as a product solicitation or promotion where such activities are prohibited. Because Hologic materials are distributed through websites, eBroadcasts and tradeshows, it is not always possible to control where such materials appear. For specific information on what products may be available in a particular country, please write to womenshealth@hologic.com.