There is not enough funding for women’s health

Beyond the margins of cancer research: 30 years of the landscape for women’s-health research in the United States and Europe, according to Dr. Arthur Mirin

Arthur Mirin, an independent researcher who initially published the analysis1, produced these results. His updated analysis of the latest information on funding and burden shows the data here. The pattern is the same.

The NIH and other health-research funders also need to give more consideration to disease burden alongside scientific merit when they assess grant proposals, because that, too, will unlock more funding for under-studied conditions. It will take 30 years for studies into women’s health to break free from the margins and into the mainstream.

The national institute for health stated in an e-mail to Nature that it takes into account considerations beyond the burden of disease when funding research, for instance to mitigate an outbreak of infectious disease.

Mirin is but one of many who make such observations. A smaller analysis2 of cancer funding, using data from the US National Cancer Institute over the 11 years from 2007 to 2017, showed that gynaecological cancers receive much less support than do other cancers when accounting for lethality (years of life lost for each new diagnosis). In a selection of 19 cancers, ovarian cancer ranks 5th for lethality, but 12th in terms of its funding-to-lethality ratio. The same pattern was followed bycervical cancer. The ratio of funding to mortality went down for gynaecological cancer during the 11 year period.

Thankfully, that has now changed. Roughly half of participants in trials funded by theNIH are women. The NIH has an office dedicated to research into women’s health and the agency mandates that researchers use both male and female animals in their studies, as appropriate. Health-research funders in Canada and Europe have adopted similar policies. The Office of Autoimmune Disease Research has been directed by the US Congress, and has contributed US$10 million from the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of a landmark US law. In 1993, it became compulsory to include women and under-represented groups in research and clinical trials funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). Drug and vaccine tests are supposed to be done only on men and women should not be tested if they become pregnant.

The past 30 years has in many ways changed the landscape for women’s-health research. But in other respects, time has stood still. Mirin has helped to unlock a window to a previously hidden corner of research. Funders need to throw it wide open, do their own studies and establish more funding calls so that other scholars can work with them. At the same time, funders must review how they classify the components of women’s health, because that will speed up data collection. There should be no difficulty in implementing a separate identification code for menopause.