Your Voice Matters: Take the Women’s Health Survey
Healthcare works best when it reflects the experiences of everyone it aims to help. That’s why we’re supporting an important initiative to better understand women’s health and improve representation in clinical research.
Dr. Olivia Wickens, Associate Medical Director at Panthera, highlights a challenge that continues to impact healthcare today:
“Women make up around 51% of the UK population, yet they remain underrepresented in many areas of clinical research. As a result, we still have significant gaps in our understanding of how diseases, treatments, and medicines affect women throughout different stages of life.”
Women and men can experience disease differently, respond differently to treatments and have unique health needs throughout life. Women can also experience greater hormonal changes at different stages of life, including the reproductive years, pregnancy, and before and after menopause. These biological and physiological differences highlight the importance of ensuring adequate representation of women in clinical research to support evidence-based healthcare that meets women’s needs.
Historically, many treatments have been developed using evidence gathered predominantly from male participants. This has contributed to what is often referred to as the gender data gap; a lack of information about how health conditions and treatments specifically affect women.
The impact can be significant, contributing to delayed diagnoses, less effective treatments, an increased risk of side effects, contributing to poorer health outcomes for women.
It’s not just about increasing participation. Research findings must also be analysed in ways that recognise important differences between men and women, ensuring that healthcare decisions are based on evidence that reflects everyone.
One example comes from a cardiovascular study conducted at Panthera. Of the 310 participants enrolled, 83% were male and only 17% were female. Cardiovascular disease remains one of the leading causes of death worldwide, yet women often experience poorer outcomes following major cardiac events despite generally having a lower incidence of disease than men.
Your Experience Can Make a Difference
We’re very proud to be partnering with North West eHealth (NWEH) to ensure women’s voices are heard and represented in future health research.
By taking part in our anonymous survey, which takes less than five minutes to complete, you’ll help us gain valuable insights into women’s experiences, perspectives, and attitudes towards health research.
The information collected will contribute to the development of a national Women’s Health Research Registry, helping researchers design more inclusive studies and generate stronger evidence from the very beginning of the research process.
Every response helps us move towards:
- Better representation of women in research
- Greater understanding of women’s health needs
- More effective treatments and healthcare interventions
- Fairer and more equitable healthcare outcomes
Together, we can help close the gender data gap and create a future where healthcare research truly reflects the women it serves.
About North West eHealth (NWEH)
North West eHealth (NWEH) is a UK-based health technology and research organisation that supports the NHS, researchers, and healthcare partners to improve the way clinical research is delivered. NWEH helps researchers better understand health conditions, identify opportunities for new treatments, and make clinical studies more accessible to the communities they serve. Their mission is to help bring life-changing treatments to patients faster through smarter, more inclusive research.
