Women’s Health Research Funding in Canada across 15 years suggests low funding levels with a narrow focus

Abstract Background Females have been underrepresented in preclinical and clinical research. Research on females is important for conditions that directly affect women, disproportionately impact women, and manifest differently in women. Sex and gender mandates were introduced, in part, to increase women’s health research. This study aimed to understand how much of women’s health research is being funded in open grant competitions in Canada that fall under the top burden and/or death of disease for women globally. Methods Publicly available funded Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) project grant abstracts from 2009-2023 were coded for the mention of female-specific research to assess what percentage of grant abstracts focused on the top 11 areas of global disease burden and/or death that disproportionately affect females. We also examined changes from 2020 to 2023 in the representation of grant abstracts that mentioned sex, gender, or two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex (2S/LGBTQI). Results The percentage of abstracts mentioning sex or gender doubled whereas the percentage of abstracts mentioning 2S/LGBTQI quadrupled from 2020 to 2023, but remained at under 10% of overall funded abstracts. In contrast, female-specific research representation remained at ~7% of all research. Under 5% of the total funded grant abstracts mentioned studying one of the top 11 global burdens of disease and/or death for women over 15 years. Of the 681 female-specific grants, cancer research accounted for 32% of funding (or 2.09% of overall grants), whereas the other top 10 collectively accounted for 38% of female-specific funding (or 2.45% overall) across 15 years. The percentage of overall funding towards understanding female-specific contributions to cardiovascular disease was 0.83% followed by diabetes (0.41%), HIV/AIDS (0.4%), depression (0.35%), anxiety (0.16%), musculoskeletal (0.12%), dementia (0.08%), respiratory (0.08%), headache (0.01%) and low back pain (0.01%). Conclusions Research acknowledging the sex and gender population in CIHR abstracts is increasing but remains at under 10% while the percentage of funding for women’s health remains unchanged at 7% of funded grants across 15 years. Highlights From 2020 to 2023, funded grant abstracts that mentioned sex, gender or 2S/LGBTQI populations doubled or quadrupled. Across the same time period, funded grant abstracts that mentioned female-specific research increased by less than a percentage. Women’s health research accounts for 7% of all funded grant abstracts and increases were not observed over 15 years. Over 15 years, only 4.5% of funded grants examined the 11 causes of global disease burden and/or death that disproportionately affect females using female-specific populations. Of these female-specific grants, cancer (breast and gynecological) accounted for over 32% of all the female-specific funded grants whereas headache disorders and depression/anxiety accounted for 0.15% and 6.9% respectively across 15 years. Given the significant burden of these diseases, greater efforts are needed to expand the breadth of women’s health research. Plain English Summary Women’s health research has historically been underrepresented and underfunded. Here, we examined 15 years of funding data from the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR), Canada’s major funder of medical research, to understand what type of women’s health research is being funded using the top 11 burdens of disease or death globally for women. From 2020 to 2023, the percentage of abstracts mentioning sex or gender doubled, whereas those mentioning 2S/LGBTQI populations quadrupled, yet still remained under 10% of all funded research. In contrast, across the same time period, women’s health research representation increased by less than a percentage and remained at ~7% of all funded research. We also examined the amount of funded research dedicated to the top 11 global burdens of disease and/or death that affect women across 15 years (from 2009-2023). Across these 15 years, we observed that cancer accounted for 2.09% of all funded research and received approximately the same amount of research representation as the 10 other global burdens of disease and death combined (2.45% of all funded research). Despite CIHR’s mandates to encourage the integration of sex and gender into research, sex and gender representation is low and mandates did not increase women’s health research. More efforts and support beyond sex and gender mandates are needed to increase and diversify women’s health research to achieve personalized medicine and close the women’s health gap.

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