Women’s Health Research; Progress, Pitfalls, and Promise

The US Institute of Medicine has released a new report concerning Women’s Health Research; Progress, Pitfalls, and Promise. The report brief that follows closely examins a subject that was both needed and overdue:

Even though slightly over half of the US population is female, apart from reproductive concerns, medical research historically has neglected the health needs of women. However, over the past two decades, there have been major changes in government support of women’s health research — in policies, regulations, and the organization of research efforts. To assess the impact of these changes, in 2008, Congress directed the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to ask the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to examine what has been learned from that research and how well it has been put into practice and communicated to both providers and women.

An IOM committee defined women’s health broadly, encompassing health conditions that are specific to women; are more common or more serious in women; have distinct causes or manifestations in women; have different outcomes or treatments in women; or have high morbidity or mortality in women. Although the committee could not review all such conditions, it finds that women’s health research has contributed to significant progress in addressing some conditions, while other conditions have seen only moderate progress or even little or no progress over the past 20 years. Gaps remain, both in research areas and in the application of results to benefit women in general and across multiple population groups.

The IOM committee developed six overarching questions to guide its deliberations.

[The committee] finds that women’s health research has contributed to significant progress in addressing some conditions, while other conditions have seen only moderate progress or even little or no progress over the past 20 years.

Is Women’s Health Research Studying the Most Appropriate and Relevant Determinants of Health?

Viewing women’s health exclusively as a function of sex differences is too narrow. It frames women’s health and well-being as a function only of biological factors and how they differ in men and women and ignores the role of gender, which is affected by broader social and community factors. The committee finds that there has been inadequate attention paid to the social and environmental factors that, along with biologic risk factors, influence women’s health. Although progress has been made in identifying behavioral determinants of women’s health, such as smoking, diet, and physical activity, few studies have tested ways to modify these determinants in women or examined the effects of social and community factors in specific groups of women. To advance this area of research, the committee recommends that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) support research on common determinants and risk factors that underlie multiple diseases.