International Women’s Day: Balancing the scales in women’s health research
In celebration of International Women’s Day, Dr Shona Sundaraj, Medibank Group Medical Director, talks about an issue she’s deeply passionate about: why medical research must do a better job of reflecting women’s health.
This year’s International Women’s Day theme, “Balance the Scales”, couldn’t be more fitting. For decades, much of the evidence that underpins modern medicine has been built on studies that largely focused on men, often overlooking the hormonal cycles, reproductive stages and life transitions that shape women’s health. The result is a system that hasn’t always fully captured how disease presents, progresses and should be treated in women.
Women experience significant physiological transitions across their lives from menarche through pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause and menopause. Yet research has often treated women as a single category, rather than recognising these distinct phases and how they influence health outcomes.
The consequence is a persistent knowledge gap. Conditions like heart disease, autoimmune disorders and depression can present differently in women, and when findings from male-centred studies are generalised, important differences may be missed. Heart disease is a clear example. It remains the leading cause of death for women globally, yet symptoms such as unusual fatigue, nausea, or jaw and back pain are sometimes overlooked because they don’t fit the “classic” presentation we’ve historically associated with the condition.
Encouragingly, this is beginning to change. There is growing momentum across the research community to design studies that better reflect women’s lives — including participants at different life stages and accounting for the role hormones can play in health and disease.
At Medibank, through the Better Health Research Hub, we are partnering with researchers to help build the evidence base and develop clinician education that improves recognition of how illnesses present in women. By strengthening research and awareness, we can help ensure women receive care that is informed by evidence that truly reflects their experiences.
Balancing the scales in health means recognising women’s health across the full life course and continuing to close the research gaps that have existed for too long.
