Concussions and the gender data gap

This #femtechfriday we are focusing on concussions and the gender research gap. Women are almost twice as likely as men to experience a concussion playing sports, and also tend to have worse and prolonged symptoms - but research and concussion protocols are based heavily on male data. Because of this we don’t really know why these differences exist, or have sex specific concussion protocols, diagnostic methods, or treatments - which puts women at greater risk of concussion and related long term disability. Read on to learn more about this research gap and what needs to be done about it!

Written by Saashi Bedford

References:

• https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200131-why-women-are-more-at-risk-from-concussion

• https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01184-8

• https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/01/magazine/brain-trauma-domestic-violence.html

• Visible Women podcast by Caroline Criado Perez, Episode 2.3

• Oyesanya et al (2016) (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5746345/)

• Wunderle et al, 2014 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24220566/)

• D’Lauro et al, 2022 (https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/56/17/981)