Why are we not prioritizing women’s health research?

The era of perpetuating gender stereotypes may be drawing to a close, yet, when it comes to health, there are important differences between women and men that matter considerably for our health. Women experience significant diagnosis delays for many diseases and greater adverse effects from new drugs than men. And women are often described as having “atypical” symptoms, even when the disease may be more common in women.

How can this be?

Until recently, nearly all health research has been solely focused on men. Sex and gender refer to different but related constructs. Sex relates to biological attributes, whereas gender relates to social-cultural expectations based on an individual’s gender identity. These variables influence our health in complex, interrelated ways. However, minimal research is done on how sex and gender influence health. Perhaps it is no wonder that women experience more severe health outcomes from common diseases.

One might think knowledge about women’s health would have caught up in the past few decades. Sadly not. In Canada, women’s health research received only 5 per cent of Canadian Institutes for Health Research funding over the past 12 years. The federal government committed $20 million over five years for a national women’s health research institute, representing only 0.5 per cent of the $1 billion annual budget for health research.

Funding matters! Consider the impact of the ice bucket challenge for ALS research. This campaign raised $115 million, and in 7 years, doubled the number of researchers and publications, tripled further ALS funding, and dramatically increased approved medications.

Although the U.S., Canadian and Europe Union governments have initiated measures to correct disparities, shortcomings in guidelines means that sex and gender data are rarely explored, with only 5 per cent of scientific studies reporting a sex or gender analysis. Yet when examined, three-quarters of studies find the sexes differ. Sex differences exist in treatment efficacy for transplants, strokes and cancer, exposing the life-saving opportunities in filling these knowledge gaps.

Furthermore, women’s health should not only be studied in comparison to men’s. Many women’s health funding applications and publications are rejected because they look at only one sex or gender. Some even regard studying women’s health as equivalent to sexism.

Yet female-unique experiences such as hormonal contraceptive use, pregnancy and pregnancy disorders, menstrual cycles and menopause influence health and disease outcomes. As do gendered experiences of the health care system and broader determinants of health. Of course, this is true for men/males’ and non-binary people’s health — which also requires dedicated attention.

Yet, women’s health is not just about fertility or “bikini medicine.” Waves of feminism have promoted the reclamation of women to be more than simply reproductive organisms. Upon discovering that heart disease was the number one killer in women post-menopause, with different symptoms and worse outcomes than men, it was realized that women’s health was far more than reproductive health.

So, what’s the solution?

Ignoring these recommendations is costly. Women make up 70 per cent of the global health care workforce, contribute dramatically to the economy, and when healthy, they are directly linked to more productive and better-educated societies. But far more than that. Women deserve to be healthy. Do we need to burn our bras again to prove it?

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