Aristotle said “Women are unfinished men.” At that time, which some consider the dawn of modern medicine, the only reason there was really any attention paid to women’s health was because they could bear children. Although a great deal of the female mental, emotional, and physical inferiority viewpoints of Aristotle have been disproven, disparities in medical research still linger.
“Few physicians think intentional discrimination is at play here. Instead, it’s a result of the vestiges of disproved beliefs and outdated conventions. The origins of this situation go back many years,” explains Janine Clayton, MD, director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) at the NIH.
Women, specifically women of color, are still underrepresented when it comes to clinical trials and research and only account for 29-34% of pharmaceutical research study participants, limiting biological understanding and contributing to health inequities.
The FDA did allow biological women participants back into clinical research trials about 30 years ago, but the industry still places a heavy focus on childbearing and fertility concerns. This comes with every day, real consequences to women’s health diagnoses and treatments as physicians and pharmacists must use data derived from studies that underrecruited female participants. For instance:
Women are seven times more likely to be misdiagnosed when they are having a heart attack and while cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death for both men and women, women die more often from heart attack, with one woman dying every minute from heart disease in the US.
The U.S. has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the developed world and the rate is worse for black women. The number of women who die during childbirth has doubled in the last two decades and as of 2021, 33 of 100,000 women died during live births.
One in five women say they have felt that a health care provider has ignored or dismissed their symptoms, and 17% say they feel they have been treated differently because of their gender, compared with 14% and 6% of men, respectively.
But there is some good news: awareness of the problem is growing. There has been a steady increase in the representation of women in medical studies over the last several decades due to the introduction and passage of laws, regulations, policies, and guidelines addressing gender inequities. Health care professionals, including doctors and researchers, are beginning to understand that this is a problem and are taking steps to correct it.
In the meantime, women will have to be their own best advocates and pay attention to their bodies, demanding the level of care they know they deserve until they get it. If a health care provider isn’t taking your symptoms seriously, find another who will.
About RevanRx
Everyone deserves to have their pharmaceutical needs met without fear or embarrassment. RevanRx is a full-service and compounding pharmacy, specializing in the unique needs of the LGBT+ community in Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas.
We hope to increase patient adherence and access to care for those who would otherwise not feel comfortable receiving medications or medication counseling in a public setting, avoiding embarrassing public conversations, misgendering, or refusal of service. Visit us at Revanrx.com and like us on Facebook.