Women’s Voices, Women’s Choices

What do women want when it comes to health-related needs? What do they think about clinical research and participating in a clinical trial?
Despite women being 51% of the population and more frequent users of the health care system, the majority of prevention guidelines, diagnostics biomarkers, treatment protocols, medications, and healthcare delivery systems are designed for male biological characteristics. Women are 50 to 75% more likely to experience an adverse drug reaction and studies indicate that women have a lower willingness to participate in clinical trials.

Increasing our understanding of the factors influencing women’s access to healthcare and health-related information, as well as participation in biomedical research has the potential to better patient outcomes and improve researcher’s understanding of sex- and gender-factors in healthcare intervention development.

The FiW team is conducting a national survey to gather women’s voices about these critical topics and develop interventions based on their needs. The goals of the survey are:

(i) to understand factors influencing health behaviors and needs in women;
(ii) to assess the level of knowledge and awareness of female-specific and differentiating factors shaping disease risk and presentation, and treatment response;
(iii) to identify factors associated with women’s participation in clinical trials.

Findings from this study will be critical to understand unmet needs and barriers that need to be addressed to improve the health of women and to identify effective and feasible strategies and interventions aimed at enhancing the inclusion of female-specific factors in research and clinical care, including increasing the enrollment and retention of women in clinical trials.

Are you interested in gathering women’s voices about one or more health-related topics in a rigorous and effective manner? Please complete the FiW survey interest form: