National Women’s Health Month - Research Equity is Important
May is National Women’s Health Month, and it kicks off with National Women’s Health Week starting on Mother’s Day May 10th. The theme is “Prevention, Innovation, and Impact: A New Era in Women’s Health.” The emphasis is on:
Prevention and early detection as the foundation of lifelong health
New scientific advances in areas like the microbiome, environmental exposures, and hormone health
Whole‑person, connected care rather than fragmented systems
The monthly observance emphasizes:
Heart health, the leading cause of death for women
Menopause and hormone health, including evidence‑based use of hormone therapy
Bone and muscle health, especially during and after menopause
Maternal health, including prenatal and postpartum care
Mental health and resilience
Cancer prevention, including cervical, breast, and lung cancer
Environmental exposures and their impact on women’s health
Research equity, pushing for more funding and sex‑specific science
As is the case for most of these national week and month observances there are many topics that deserve attention and designating a specific time on the calendar gives us a chance to focus on these areas of emphasis. What I’ve also found is I just can’t do it all. I try to eat better, exercise, stay up on preventative measures, see my doctor, pay attention to my mental health . . . but I often fail in one or more areas. My solution is to try and focus on one area that seems more important to me. When it comes to National Women’s Health Week/Month, I think the concept of research equity is an area that hasn’t been a priority – much to the determent of women. It’s something that could have a big impact on women’s health.
At two different conferences in the last 6 months, I’ve listened to a discussion about perimenopause. Growing up, menopause wasn’t a subject that was discussed around men, and I only witnessed its symptoms as my wife traversed this difficult time. I had no idea there was even something called perimenopause. This pre-menopause event happens 4 to 10 years prior to menopause and is accompanied by wildly fluctuating hormones, irregular cycles, and the beginning of menopause symptoms. The first discussion was at a panel 6 months ago that talked about difficulties in acquiring participants in drug trials. Someone brought up the fact that, in many of the trials the panelists had some involvement in, there were no questions in the application concerning the subject’s status concerning menopause or perimenopause. This made it impossible to track the effects their menopausal status would have on their trial results. What amazed me was the realization of the panel members that the other members felt just as adamant as they were that it was a serious oversight and very possibly could have affected the efficacy of a given drug for women who were menopausal or perimenopausal. This discussion consumed more than half of the time allotted for this panel. The second conversation was in a random group I was part of during a discussion on women’s health and everyone of the other 6 people felt strongly that perimenopause had been ignored, both in trial selection and tracking - but also in research to discover medicines to combat these symptoms. Again, they reacted with indignation at the seriousness of this oversight.
I’ve wondered, since this experience, how something that seems so basic could have been ignored. It gave me pause to think that there could be other seemingly basic women related differences that could have also been overlooked. I’ve written quite a bit lately about equitable treatment, specifically concerning ageism and the treatment of minorities and the disabled. My point of view has been that personalized diagnosis and treatment is the secret to the equitable practice of medicine. If we are to have medicines and procedures that are as effective for women as they are for men and are as effective for perimenopausal women as those that are not, then we need to recognize these differences and test and do trials with those differences considered and tracked.
Having said that, I’m very aware of the difficulties scientists face as they try to get trial participants that fit all of the differences and criteria of a given trial. One of the big costs of discovering and bringing a prescription drug to market is conducting the different trial phases. It’s one of the areas where other countries are threatening our long standing excellence in discovering new medicines. One part of the solution to this problem is working with the FDA to find ways we can streamline trials. The FDA has released draft guidance on how AI might be used in drug development and approval. We need to encourage these steps to speed up drug discovery and approvals.
There are many important aspects of National Women’s Health Month, we need to encourage the women in our lives, who are often more concerned with the loved ones in their lives than their own health, to take care of themselves. To incorporate preventative care in their lives and be mindful of how important their own health is to those around them. And finally, we need to encourage lawmakers to focus on encouraging equity in research and healthcare, especially for the women in our lives.
Best, Thair