Sex Specific Medical Research: Why Women's Health Can't Wait

Twenty years ago, a bipartisan group of legislators worked with patients, providers, policy makers, and advocates to create and pass the 1993 National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act, a law mandating that

women and minorities be included in clinical trials funded by the NIH. In many ways the law has been a success.

Women are now routinely included in clinical trials, and we have learned how certain diseases present differently in men and women.

Yet, despite some progress, medical research is too often flawed by its failure to examine sex differences. It is now clear that men and women experience illness differently and this report looks closely at four diseases where this is especially true: cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, depression and Alzheimer’s disease. The past two decades have shown not only that sex differences exist, but have produced scientific advancements that enhance our ability to discover why they occur and how we might adapt prevention, detection and treatment strategies for the benefit of women and men alike. Therefore, to ignore these differences challenges the quality and integrity of science and medicine.

While this report focuses on women, understanding health differences is valuable to all who want to understand the impact of different conditions and treatments on men and communities of color as well. Our hope is that this document will fill a void in our collective conscience by highlighting the challenges ahead and inspiring men and women alike to care about the inequities that now exist. Researchers around the world have worked tirelessly on these issues, and many of their studies are cited in these pages. We gratefully acknowledge their important contributions.

In addition to documenting the problem, this report also offers a realistic, concrete action plan for a path forward.

We hope this plan will inspire all stakeholders to work together to gain a recommitment to research in which the study of sex differences is the norm, not the exception.

Now is the time for us to act so that we can realize the promise of the NIH Revitalization Act. Embracing the study of sex differences can improve the lives of women and men in the United States and around the globe, for this generation and for generations to come.