Current Issues on Research Conducted to Improve Women’s Health

Abstract

There are varied lessons to be learned regarding the current methodological approaches to women’s health research. In the present scheme of growing medical literature and inflation of novel results claiming significance, the sheer amount of information can render evidence-based practice confusing. The factors that classically determined the impact of discoveries appear to be losing ground: citation count and publication rates, hierarchy in author lists according to contribution, and a journal’s impact factor. Through a comprehensive literature search on the currently available data from theses, opinion, and original articles and reviews on this topic, we seek to present to clinicians a narrative synthesis of three crucial axes underlying the totality of the research production chain: (a) critical advances in research methodology, (b) the interplay of academy and industry in a trial conduct, and (c) review- and publication-associated developments. We also provide specific recommendations on the study design and conduct, reviewing the processes and dissemination of data and the conclusions and implementation of findings. Overall, clinicians and the public should be aware of the discourse behind the marketing of alleged breakthrough research. Still, multiple initiatives, such as patient review and strict, supervised literature synthesis, have become more widely accepted. The “bottom-up” approach of a wide dissemination of information to clinicians, together with practical incentives for stakeholders with competing interests to collaborate, promise to improve women’s healthcare.

A call for action: Need to expand the scope of women's health assessment

“…Diagnosis inconsistencies and biases exist in understanding disease states in real‐world healthcare data sets (Burns et al, 2023). The available data and evidence suggest that women and men experience disease occurrence, progression and outcomes differently (Crimmins et al, 2019; Siristatidis et al, 2021). Hence, health systems and healthcare providers should consider women's health as encompassing both female‐specific and general health conditions that may affect women differently or disproportionately (Burns et al, 2023) as well as respond differently regarding the need for health services, access to care and quality of care considering sex or gender‐based perspectives.…”

“…TheHologicGlobalWomen'sHealthIndex(HGWHI)isamultiyear, comprehensiveglobal,surveyaboutwomen'shealth,developedto helpfillacriticalgapinwhattheworldknowsaboutthehealthand well-beingoftheworld'swomenandgirls (Hologic,2023) and approaches to capture the complexity of the women's health (Burns et al, 2023;Ostrach, 2021;Siristatidis et al, 2021;Weber etal.,2019).…”

“…Addressing and optimizing the health and well‐being of women and girls is an important national and global agenda contributing to society's strength and productivity. Despite significant progress in eliminating gender disparities during the last two decades, the health and well‐being of women, girls and gender minorities are still elusive goals because of the limitations of the current women's health definition (Burns et al, 2023), assessment research (Siristatidis et al, 2021) and methods (Weber et al, 2019). A key challenge for the assessment of women's health is that self‐reported data related to the biological, social and holistic health needs of women and girls are limited and often unreliable.…”

Updates in Assisted Reproduction

“…Thirdly, the quality of the studies published in the international literature are far from ideally providing robust conclusions and meaningfully guiding future research. In a recent paper [ 8 ], we addressed the potential flaws and pitfalls in research conduct, along with recommendations for the improvement of study designs/methods and scientific reporting. This aimed at promoting publication quality and stricter criteria for its release with support from the appropriate structures.…”

“…This aimed at promoting publication quality and stricter criteria for its release with support from the appropriate structures. Additionally, we emphasized the ethical need to “put patient-first”, as well as the need for facilitating a set goal via healthy network collaborations [ 8 ]. In another paper [ 9 ], the authors came to the same conclusion, reporting flaws in the ethics of data reporting, dysfunctional peer review, conflicts of interest in editorial offices, patient selection biases, and the utilization of incorrect statistical methodologies.…”