Too many women face a “diagnostic odyssey” at the doctor’s office. A new $20 billion, 10-year plan aims to fix that.
The Society for Women’s Health Research is pushing a federal roadmap to improve the health of more than half of the population. The group’s president and CEO, Katie Schubert, told Healthful that the plan is a first-of-its-kind approach to funding research, education and training for doctors.
The funding gap
Research from Melinda French Gates’ Pivotal shows a stark imbalance: for every dollar spent globally on medical research and innovation, only 5 cents go to women’s health. In the U.S., the picture is worse. When the Society for Women’s Health Research launched in 1989, only 13% of the National Institutes of Health’s budget went to women’s health. Now that number is less than 10%.
“We need to make sure we’re investing in the research itself,” Schubert said. “We also are taking this a step further. It can’t just be research dollars. We need to support the workforce in research and in clinical education.”
The diagnostic odyssey
Women face a “diagnostic odyssey” with “mystery illnesses and diseases,” Schubert said. Even common conditions like cardiovascular disease and menopause are so under-researched that it takes longer for women to get answers from their doctors.
She pointed to menopause as an example. It affects 100% of women, yet millions of dollars go into other research, including trials on medications for men’s sexual health.
A national strategy
A total of more than 60 health groups have joined the SWHR road map, with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Heart Association and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society among those who have signed on. The plan calls for Congress to approve $20 billion over the decade so the health gap between women and men in the United States can be closed.
“This is a lot of money,” Schubert acknowledged. But she says it’s necessary.
How the money breaks down
The plan divides funding across five categories over the decade:
| Bucket | Focus |
|---|---|
| 1 | Research and innovation |
| 2 | Coordination among agencies |
| 3 | Education and training for clinicians |
| 4 | Data collection |
| 5 | Health literacy |
Researchers need to gather more inclusive data on patients, according to Schubert, so they can study how symptoms of the same disease may show up in women versus men.
What women can do now
Schubert recommends that women equip themselves with knowledge. Within a standard 15-minute appointment, she says, every second matters.
“Unfortunately have the burden… to go in [the doctor’s office] and advocate for ourselves,” Schubert said. She warns against relying too heavily on social media for health advice, noting that some sources are reliable while others are not.
The road ahead
Congress must now hear Schubert’s message loud and clear, and she is doing all she can to bring the issue into focus so that lawmakers take her funding proposal and turn it into law.
“We’re standing on the shoulders of those who came before us to make our voices collectively so loud that policymakers can’t ignore it anymore,” she said.
Decades of work lie behind the Society for Women’s Health Research’s efforts to secure inclusion in medical research.
See the video the story is built around at CBS News.
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