Article by Stefaan Verhulst and Cosima Lenz: “…Significant knowledge gaps remain regarding conditions that disproportionately affect women, sex-specific differences in disease presentation and progression, and the ways in which health systems respond to women’s needs across the life course. These gaps have tangible consequences. Clinical guidelines, diagnostic pathways, health technologies, and policy decisions are frequently informed by evidence that inadequately accounts for sex and gender differences, contributing to delayed diagnoses, poorer health outcomes, and persistent inequalities in care.
Fortunately, momentum is building to address this imbalance. On July 15, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the Society for Women’s Health Research, and the Women First Research Coalition released a National Strategy to Close the Women’s Health Gap, calling for a “women’s health moonshot” comprised of $20 billion in federal research investment over ten years. It was subsequently endorsed by dozens of organizations. This ambition is welcome and overdue. And it complements the various new strategies, investment initiatives and advocacy efforts that have emerged across Europe and globally.
But all these proposals for more funding also raise a fundamental question: if substantially more resources become available for women’s health, how should we decide where they should go? For instance, the US strategy calls for various pathways to increase funds for research and evidence but doesn’t prioritize specific areas that could be transformative if funded and studied more.
Closing the women’s health gap is therefore not only a funding challenge. It is also an agenda-setting challenge; and a questions gap. Investment decisions inevitably reflect assumptions about what counts as women’s health, which gaps matter most, what evidence is needed, and whose priorities should shape the research agenda. Getting those questions right is essential if new investment is to address historically neglected needs rather than reinforce existing patterns of attention and funding.
Women’s health encompasses an extraordinarily broad range of issues spanning biological, social, economic, technological, and environmental dimensions. In a context of finite resources, priority-setting becomes essential. Determining which questions matter most is not simply a technical exercise; it is a strategic process that shapes the future direction of research, policy, and investment. Yet, we lack sufficiently systematic and inclusive mechanisms for determining which unanswered questions matter most, to whom, and for what purpose…(More)”.
