Leadership Quote by Gro Harlem Brundtland

A technocrat’s warning dressed up as an epidemiological footnote, this line quietly rewrites osteoporosis from a “women’s disease” into a policy problem that will not stay politely gendered. Brundtland, a politician steeped in public health governance, starts with the familiar statistic (80% women) not to reinforce it, but to set up a pivot: demographics will sabotage our stereotypes. The real subject isn’t bones; it’s how health systems misallocate attention when a condition is culturally coded as someone else’s problem.

The phrasing is strategic. “As the longevity of the male population increases” carries an implicit victory lap about modern medicine and welfare states, then flips it into consequence: success breeds new burdens. That’s classic late-20th-century health politics, where longer life expectancy forces governments to fund chronic, non-communicable diseases rather than dramatic infectious threats. “Assume increasing importance” is bureaucratic language with teeth: importance translates into budgets, screening guidelines, research priorities, and who gets taken seriously in a clinic.

There’s also a subtle equity argument hiding in plain sight. Women have borne the recognition of osteoporosis, often through a framing that can slide into dismissal (“aging women,” “frailty”). Brundtland suggests that when men become affected in larger numbers, institutional urgency will rise. It’s a critique of how masculinity influences medical attention without ever saying “gender bias.” The intent is preventive policymaking: don’t wait for a male caseload to legitimize a disease already harming millions.