The default patient in medical research has typically been a “white, heterosexual man from Pennslyvania.”
It’s a point that Ged Kearney, Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care, has made several times in calling out the detrimental impacts this narrow research view has on anyone who doesn’t fit the stereotypical male form.
Now, a new centre opening today in Sydney hopes to change that, with a focus on addressing sex and gender inequities in health and medicaine.
The Centre for Sex and Gender Equity in Health in Medicine has been unveiled at UNSW, aiming to challenge the “one-size-fits-all” male-centric approach to health care that has disadvantages for women, girls, and those with variations in sex characteristics, as well as trans and gender diverse people.
Ged Kearney launched the Centre this morning, declaring it “comes at a time when we are finally beginning a course correction, righting the wrongs of the past when it comes to gender bias in the health system”.
“It represents a large step forward in fighting what I call medically misogyny,” Kearney added, via her video address today.
As a joint initiative between The George Institute for Global Health, the Australian Human Rights Institute at UNSW, and Deakin University, the Centre is supported by the Victorian Department of Health and the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes.
Led by founding director Professor Robyn Norton, the centre’s mandate is to address the underlying binary sex and gender bias in health and medicine that leads to poorer health outcomes. It will also identify evidence gaps and inefficient health spending for women, girls, and gender-diverse people.
As Norton said on the launch, 70 per cent of the participants in early-stage clinical trials are white men, while male cells and male animals are used as standard in laboratories.
“When these results are generalised to women, intersex, trans and gender-diverse people, we see long delays in diagnosis and intervention, inappropriate treatment or dosing, different responses to medicines and devices, and dismissal of pain or other symptoms,” she said.
“This historical focus almost exclusively on the male means other populations have been understudied. Viewing trial protocols and analysis through a sex- and gender-sensitive lens can improve outcomes across the board.”
Professor Rachel Huxley, Executive Dead for the Faculty of Health at Deakin University, noted how women are more likely to encounter bias when it comes to addressing health-related issues across the course of their lives, despite typically living longer than men.
She shared how women’s health research and services typically focus only on their sexual, reproductive and maternal health, rather than understanding how the leading causes of death and disability are experienced by women and best treated, including heart disease, dementia and stroke.
“Heart disease, for example, is a leading cause of illness and death for both Australian women and men, yet it continues to be primarily known as a ‘man’s disease’. As a result, women’s symptoms are often not picked up, attributed to other, often psychological causes, and treatment is delayed or not given at all, with serious consequences including death.”
The Centre will also address the lack of health data on boys and men and gender-diverse people on conditions that mostly occur in women – such as osteoporosis which is predominantly seen as a disease impacting older women, but almost a third of osteoporosis hip fractures actually affect men.
Associate Professor David Carter, an Associate of the Australian Human Rights Institute, said the first step to improving health outcomes for everyone, regardless of sex or gender, is to present a clear picture of the problem by gathering robust evidence. He added that making that happen means educating everyone in the medical ecosystem on how to factor sex and gender considerations into health and medical research and practice – including cross-funding, conducting, publishing or applying research to treatment or policy.
The Centre’s launch is part of a global movement to address the issue with countries including Canada, Japan, the UK, and the United States. A number of international experts are speaking at a conference associated with the Centre’s launch today.
The Centre’s founding director, Professor Robyn Norton, is also one of two founding directors of The George Institute for Global Health. She has published widely on women’s health, global health and injury and co-establish The George’s Global Women’s Health Program, which takes a life course approach to addressing the leading causes of death and disability for women and girls. Norton is also a founding member of the National Women’s Health Advisory Council.