Today's #femtechfriday covers what we have learnt during our launch event for the Mind the Reserach Gap initiative - check it out if you need a refresher!
There are important differences between men and women in the presentation, aetiology, and outcomes of a variety of disorders. However, historically most medical research has been conducted in male populations, and results from those studies were assumed to be also valid for women. Increasing evidence suggests that this is not the case. Examples of this can be found in various disease areas including cardiovascular, metabolic and inflammatory disease.
For example, women are 50% more likely to die within the first year of a heart attack, and 80% of Americans with autoimmune conditions are women.
Despite this, just 4.5% of the $444 million 2019 NIH coronary artery disease budget was women-focused, and only 7% of the $86 million 2019 NIH budget for rheumathroid arthritis was women-focused.
Poorly conducted or reported research can lead to ineffective and potentially dangerous health policy and treatment strategies. So how can we change health policy for the better? Ensuring that sufficient numbers of women are included in scientific studies, reporting data using a sex-disaggregated approach, and investing more money in women-focused research are some proposed solutions.
Special thanks to our amazing speakers, Dr Sanne Peters (Imperial College London), Carolee Lee and Dr Anula Jayasuriya (WHAM). Thank you for enlightening us!
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