Advancing gender-sensitive science in healthcare

'Advances in biomonitoring technologies for women’s health' article, published in Nature Magazine, review addresses the long-standing bias in biomedical research and healthcare toward male populations, which has resulted in women (and transgender individuals) being underrepresented in studies, diagnostic norms, and device design. The review explores applications of wearables and biosensors across multiple domains of women’s health, including fertility, pregnancy and maternal health, hormonal monitoring, vaginal infections, gynecologic and breast cancers, and osteoporosis. 📌 For example, devices that track basal body temperature, sweat biomarkers, or hormonal shifts can help with ovulation tracking and fertility. 📌 In pregnancy, smart textiles, abdominal sensors, and wearable ECG/uterine contraction monitors are being developed to continuously monitor maternal and fetal biomarkers. 📌 On the diagnostic side, innovations in point-of-care assays and microfluidic devices are being adapted to detect vaginal pathogens (e.g. via pH, enzymatic markers, or nucleic acid amplification) and early signals of gynecologic cancers (liquid biopsy, micro-exosome capture, multifunctional immunosensors). The authors argue that this gap contributes to delays in diagnosis, suboptimal treatments, and systemic inequities in women’s health. They survey emerging technologies—especially wearable sensors, point-of-care diagnostics, and AI/ML tools—that can help close that gap by enabling continuous, non-invasive biomonitoring tailored to female physiology. However, the authors underscore significant barriers and challenges to adoption. Many of the devices are still in prototype or small-scale testing stages and lack validation in diverse, large populations, especially in low-resource settings. Usability, user compliance, comfort, data interpretation, cost, and integration with clinical workflows are major hurdles. In addition, socioeconomic and digital divides—such as access to internet, smartphones, and health literacy—can limit uptake among marginalized groups. The review also discusses how AI and machine learning could amplify the impact of biomonitoring by improving predictive accuracy and pattern recognition, though models must be trained on more balanced, representative datasets to avoid reinforcing bias. Find out more via link 🔗 https://lnkd.in/d-xh9R6m #femtech #womenshealth #innovation #biomonitoring #biomarkers

Sex and gender are widely acknowledged as important variables in #research. This paper shows how inconsistently they are actually studied. A new Nature Neuroscience Perspective by Michelle Roche et al., led by the international #PAINDIFF Network, brings much-needed methodological clarity to this gap. The recommendations are grounded in a global survey of 483 pain researchers, combined with an expert consensus process spanning preclinical, clinical, and translational research. 💡 Several findings motivating the recommendations stood out: • Most researchers report that sex is important, yet far fewer routinely include both sexes in study design • Even when both sexes are included, sex-disaggregated analysis and reporting remain inconsistent • Gender is rarely incorporated beyond basic demographics in human and clinical studies • Common barriers persist, including limited resources, uncertainty about relevance, and lack of clear guidance • In preclinical research, persistent assumptions about increased variability in females continue to shape design choices These gaps matter. Inconsistent inclusion and reporting limit reproducibility, complicate comparison across studies, and reduce translational value. In response, the authors propose a clear, pragmatic framework, including five universal recommendations that should apply to most studies: 1. Include males and females as standard practice, with explicit justification when only one sex is studied 2. Account for sex in randomization, counterbalancing, and testing order 3. Power studies to detect sex differences when sex is a primary variable or when prior evidence suggests sex-specific effects 4. Report experimental design in sufficient detail to support replication and pooled analyses 5. Analyze and report data disaggregated by sex, regardless of whether differences are statistically significant Additional recommendations address preclinical specifics, such as reporting the sex of cell lines and environmental conditions, and human research considerations, including how sex assigned at birth and gender identity are collected, reported, and ethically handled. Although this Perspective focuses on pain and related research, the challenges it identifies and the solutions it proposes are relevant across therapeutic areas and research domains where variability, rigor, and generalizability matter. At GSD Health Research, much of our work sits at this intersection of study design, real-world complexity, and methodological rigor, particularly when sex- and gender-related variability matters for interpretation and translation. 🔗 Nature Neuroscience (2025): “Recommendations for the inclusion and study of sex and gender in research” https://lnkd.in/dGdzdxpv

Imagine losing your mother, sister, or daughter, because the treatments meant to save her were never designed for women. For decades, women have been underrepresented in clinical trials and medical research, despite clear biological differences that impact how treatments affect us. The result? 🔹Many treatments & drugs considered safe & effective may be far less suitable (or even harmful) for half of the population ↪️ For instance, women metabolize some drugs differently from men, meaning dosages should be adapted, but often aren’t 🔹Conditions like endometriosis or autoimmune diseases (disproportionately affecting women) remain under-researched and underfunded, leaving millions of women suffering without effective treatments As surprising as it may sound, women are twice as likely as men to die from a heart attack. However: 🩵 Until 1993, women were rarely included in clinical trials 🩵 Today, women still make up only 22% of participants in heart disease clinical trials 🩵 Most cells used early on in clinical trials are male cells, and most lab mice are male too 🩵 According to a 2022 report, less than 5% of the money spent researching coronary artery diseases goes to projects focusing on women 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑠𝑛'𝑡 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑎 𝑔𝑎𝑝: 𝑖𝑡’𝑠 𝑎 𝑠𝑦𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑐 𝑏𝑖𝑎𝑠. From heart disease to chronic pain, while we know that down to the cellular level, men and women do differ, gender differences are overlooked, and lives are at stake. 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐜𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐬? ➡️ Hormonal variations during the menstrual cycle were deemed “too complex” to study ➡️ Potential pregnancy risks led to women being sidelined for “ethical” reasons ➡️ Male subjects were seen as the “standard,” with the assumption that results would automatically apply to women 🙅♀️ We can’t accept our healthcare systems to routinely fail to account for half the population. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧? 🧐 Medical research must stop treating men as the default, which means: 1️⃣ 𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐳𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧’𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡 and conditions disproportionately affecting them 2️⃣ 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫-𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬 in all clinical trials (not just listing gender breakdowns, but investigating how drugs & treatments work for women vs. men) 3️⃣ 𝐄𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐨𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 for women vs. men, so treatments are most effective and safe for all 𝐻𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑡ℎ𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑒 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑜𝑓 𝑢𝑠; 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑢𝑠. But to make that happen, we need systemic change in how treatments are researched, designed, and delivered. 𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐲; 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐬𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬.

Excited to share a new open-access publication out today in BMC Digital Health: Developing a Gender Framework for Responsive and Adaptive Design in Digital Health (FORWARD) from a review of reviews. Digital health interventions are becoming increasingly widespread in low-and middle-income countries, yet gender remains a missed consideration in how many digital tools are designed, implemented, and evaluated. In this umbrella review of systematic reviews, only 8 (5.5%) explicitly applied a gender lens. Barriers such as women's limited phone ownership, financial dependence, and restrictive gender norms were often mentioned, but rarely measured systematically or address in program design. Drawing on these gaps, we introduce the Gender Framework for Responsive and Adaptive Design in Digital Health or Gender FORWARD. This helps implementers and policymakers integrate gender at the individual, workforce, and digital ecosystem levels. A few takeaways: - Digital health design choices can reinforce or disrupt existing gender inequities. - Gender transformative approaches show promise but are rare and under-evaluated. - There is a need for better measurement of gender-related barriers and outcomes in DHI research and routine data systems. Read the full article (open access): https://lnkd.in/eXSPUtE5 The Center for Global Digital Health Innovation, Smisha Agarwal, Katya Saksena, Michelle Colder Carras, Isis Belucci Gomes, Johns Hopkins Center for Global Women's Health & Gender Equity, Gender and Health Summer Institute | Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

This powerful new whitepaper by the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with the Global Alliance for Women’s Health, Kearney, and the Gates Foundation, is shining a long-overdue spotlight on the critical gaps in women’s health research, and what we must do about it. Despite living longer, women spend 25% more of their lives in poor health or disability than men. Yet, only 7% of healthcare research focuses on conditions that exclusively affect women. Even more concerning is the underrepresentation of women, particularly women of color and postmenopausal women, in clinical trials. This report doesn’t just highlight the problem. It also delivers a prescription for change. From expanding inclusion and redesigning clinical trials to reflect women’s unique biology, to enhancing data transparency and deepening sex-specific insights, the recommendations here are bold, actionable, and long overdue. #WomensHealth #HealthyAging 

State of Women's Health by Accenture and Springboard Enterprises ➡️ Core Challenges - Underfunded: Less investment in research and innovation for women’s health. - Under-researched: Disproportionate focus on male or gender-neutral studies. - Misunderstood: Persistent gaps in understanding and bias in healthcare. ➡️ Health Journey and Barriers - Pre-Diagnosis: Women have unique biological and hormonal susceptibilities, but awareness gaps and evolving risk profiles often delay seeking care. - Diagnosis: Symptom differences, lack of sex-specific diagnostic tools, and gender bias in medical education and practice lead to delayed or missed diagnoses. - Post-Diagnosis: Women face barriers such as lack of sex-specific dosing, unequal access to optimal treatments, and challenges in medication adherence, resulting in worse health outcomes. ➡️ Condition Spotlights - Cardiovascular Disease: Leading cause of death in women globally, but research and treatment are skewed toward male biology, leading to misdiagnosis and worse outcomes. - Autoimmune Disorders: 78% of autoimmune patients are women; these conditions are under-researched and often misdiagnosed due to symptom complexity and lack of sex-specific data. ➡️ Data and Representation Gaps - Clinical Trials: Women are under-represented, even in conditions that predominantly or differently affect them, limiting understanding of sex-based differences. - Data Standards: Lack of sex-specific data analysis and reporting, especially in genetic and large-scale studies. ➡️ Investment and Innovation - Funding: Investment in women’s health is growing but remains insufficient compared to general health funding. - Innovation: Emerging technologies (AI, big data, biosensors) and specialized care models are addressing gaps and improving outcomes for women. ➡️ Call to Action - Mindset Shift: Raise awareness of biases and educate on women’s unique health needs. - Education: Reform medical curricula to include sex-based biology and gendered symptoms. - Data: Mandate equal sex representation in clinical trials and implement sex-based data standards. - Precision: Revise diagnostic tools and dosing protocols for sex-specific thresholds. - Funding: Double investment in women’s health research and innovation. ➡️ Innovators and Change-makers Visana Health: Virtual clinic providing comprehensive, personalized care for women at all life stages. Herself Health: Specialized primary care for older women, addressing misdiagnosis and holistic needs. juli: AI-powered platform for managing chronic conditions by consolidating health data. Dandelion Health: AI tools to reduce bias in healthcare data and improve research on women’s health. Persperity Health: Non-invasive biosensors for continuous hormone monitoring. Accenture Clinical Trial Companion: AI agent to improve trial retention and data quality for women.

Did you know that in the UK, women are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed after a heart attack? This is not because women’s symptoms are “atypical”, they are typical for women, but because medical research and training have historically centred on male bodies. The “Reference Man” has been the standard for everything from drug dosages to car crash test dummies, with devastating results: women are 17% more likely to die in a car crash, and 47% more likely to be seriously injured, simply because safety systems were not designed with them in mind. Caroline Criado Perez outlines this concept of 'male as default' in her book, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. Even today, the vast majority of pain studies are conducted on male mice, and drugs are often not tested on women at different stages of their menstrual cycle. The result? Women experience more adverse drug reactions, and sometimes, the drugs simply don’t work for them. This isn’t just a healthcare issue, it’s a design issue. When we build systems, products, or workplaces around a single “default” user, we inevitably exclude others. The cost is not just inconvenience, but real harm. In the case of organisations outside of healthcare, these same default user error easily occurs. And this is causing real harm to individuals, teams, companies and has real knock-on effects in society. So what can we do? We must design workplace systems, policies, and cultures that recognise and accommodate difference. We must examine inherent bias that exists in our people processes - right from designing a role, through to the language used in job descriptions and the expectations around what a job 'should' look like. There are so many aspects to eliminating bias in the workplace and this is just one of the starting points for organisations. At Shape Talent Ltd, we've developed a Debias Audit, designed to identify barriers and gender biases in organisations, many of which can be subtle and unintentional. People processes, policies and systems may have been passed down for years without anyone looking critically at them and asking whether they are gender inclusive in their ability to attract, retain, promote and reward talent. Organisations may not be aware of the simple, subtle and often quick changes they can make to their HR policies and practices that positively influence gender equality in the workforce. If this might be a helpful tool, get in touch to discuss how we can customise it for your organisation. #GenderEquity #EDI #DebiasAudit #DEI #PeopleAndCulture #HRLeadership #HRToolkit

Overlooking women’s health gap is a lost opportunity Bridging the gender health gap is not only an ethical and human rights matter but could boost the global economy by $1 trillion annually by 2040, according to a McKinsey & Company report. Women’s medical concerns are often dismissed at higher rates than those of men, with significant lack of funding in women’s health. Many would argue that it’s a lost opportunity. ☁️ So, how do we address gender-specific healthcare data gaps? Healthcare providers, researchers, policymakers and the general public should work together as part of a multi-faceted approach, says Dr Mariam Thomas, a healthcare consultant. She suggests enhancing women’s health data by: • Standardizing data collection to address the gender gap in research • Allocating dedicated funding to women’s health • Educating healthcare providers on gender-specific health issues • Raising public awareness and advocacy to reduce dismissal of women’s medical concerns • Implementing policies for inclusive healthcare practices. It’s also important to underscore that women’s health goes beyond the reproductive system, says healthcare consultant Mohammad Al-Mobarak. For example, women often sustain more serious injuries in car crashes due to seatbelt design issues, he says, adding education on such matters should commence early in medical school to establish the right mindset. Clinical operations manager Fatima Khimatova observes that women may go unexamined or undertreated due to personal reasons, including cost constraints, limited access to female doctors, or prioritizing other responsibilities over their health. She says that women must be involved in seminars about the importance of health and timely access to the clinic. Meanwhile, Saria Gouher, an internal medicine consultant, emphasizes women taking charge of health and engaging in research. Women leaders, she suggests, should create forums to motivate and lead increased participation. “By serving on healthcare and research committees, women can ensure a comprehensive understanding of disparities and advocate for equal representation,” she says. 🖊️ Dana Moukhallati Sources: https://lnkd.in/giQtP46g https://lnkd.in/dbk84Y4Q https://lnkd.in/dhccdfcB https://lnkd.in/dqxf56_B https://lnkd.in/dGe6pK4B 📷 Getty Images

Vulva cupcakes are cute and all, but International Women’s Day is about more than sugar coating things. If we want a world where women are not just included, but valued and protected, we need to redesign the system—from the lab, to the clinic, to the boardrooms where decisions are made. When we talk about the gender health gap, what does it actually mean? Let me explain.... Imagine you’re in a car. The seatbelt, the airbags, the crash tests—they’ve all been designed for a 70kg man. But you’re not a 70kg man. So when you crash, you are 47% more likely to be seriously injured than a man. That’s not a hypothetical. That’s real. That’s how safety standards are built. Now take that same design flaw and apply it to medicine. Imagine your parents. Your father has chest pain and walks into an emergency room. The doctors immediately check for a heart attack, because that’s the "classic" symptom. Your mother walks in with the same heart problem, but her symptoms look different—nausea, fatigue, shortness of breath. She’s told it’s anxiety or indigestion and sent home. She is twice as likely to die after a heart attack than your father. Across 700+ diseases, women are diagnosed later than men—meaning by the time they finally get the right treatment, the disease has had more time to progress. This isn’t a coincidence. It’s the result of a system that was designed without women in mind. This is not just about fairness. This is about survival. But here’s the good news: we are finally changing the system. At Hertility, we refuse to accept a world where women are an afterthought in healthcare. Through personalised and preventative diagnostic care, we are closing the gender health gap by providing answers in days, not decades. 💡 We can diagnose over 18 conditions with 99% accuracy in just 8 days—conditions that, in the traditional system, might take years of misdiagnosis and medical gaslighting to uncover. 📊 We empower women with data-driven insights about their reproductive and hormonal health, so they can take control of their bodies before symptoms spiral into serious diseases. 🏥 We provide life-stage health care from testing to telemedicine to treatments- from menstruation through to menopause. Women’s health is not a side issue. It’s our mothers, our sisters, our daughters. And if we continue using a seatbelt that wasn’t designed for them, we’ll keep watching them crash. This International Women’s Day, let’s not just celebrate women—let’s fight for them. #ReproductiveRevolution #ScienceMeetLife #AccelerateAction #InternationalWomensDay #GenderHealthGap #Hertility

Women’s health has moved past the question of “why.” At JPM this week, McKinsey & Company convened leaders for Advancing the Health of Women: From Discovery to Market & Systems Transformation—and the shift in the conversation was unmistakable. For years, the focus was on proving the business case. The McKinsey Health Institute and World Economic Forum 2024 report answered that question—showing women spend 25% more time in poor health and that closing this gap could unlock a $1T+ global opportunity. That case has now been made, and the conversation has shifted—from why women’s health matters to how to act at the scale the evidence demands. Here’s what the action stage looks like: 🧬 From “women are small men” to sex-based science Women were long treated as an afterthought in medical research, leaving major gaps in understanding female biology—from cardiovascular disease to Alzheimer’s. Closing those gaps requires bolder, faster innovation models. 🏗️ From fragmented care to system redesign Women experience healthcare as episodic, exhausting, and disconnected. The opportunity now is to redesign care around women’s lives—integrating prevention, early detection, and whole-person care that accounts for sex-based differences. ⏳ Midlife: the missed moment we can’t afford to ignore Across many conditions, disease burden peaks between 35 and 65—often just as women fall out of systematic care. Integrated models can change long-term health and economic trajectories. 📊 From insight to operating models Sex-disaggregated data and predictive analytics are no longer nice to have. They are decision tools—aligning outcomes and economics, reducing high-cost events, and unlocking value across health ecosystem. 👩⚖️ From intent to accountability Women’s health hasn’t been held back by a lack of passion or proof. It has been constrained by fragmented systems and limited follow-through. Leadership matters. When accountability sits at the top—and leadership reflects the people being served—performance improves. The trillion-dollar headline got our attention. The work now is execution—at scale, across systems—connecting evidence, economics, and operating models to unlock better health outcomes, sustainable value for health systems, and durable growth for innovators, investors, and societies. Grateful for the leaders who joined us and are moving this conversation from aspiration to action, including our speakers Anita Zaidi (Gates Foundation), Beri Ridgeway, M.D. (Cleveland Clinic), Jyoti Gupta, PhD (GE HealthCare), Paul Kusserow (Unified Women's Healthcare), Philip Breesch (Chiesi Group), Regina Dugan (Wellcome Leap) And huge thanks to the McKinsey & Company team who shaped this event: Anastasia P., Isabella Fenn, Danielle DiStefano, Isabella Tagliaferri, Jessica J. Federer, Kate Midden, Megan Greenfield, Ph.D., Michael D. Conway, Molly Bode, Shannon Ensor, Valentina Sartori, Vanessa Hung #WomensHealth #CloseTheWomensHealthGap #JPM2026