Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they take when funding medical research to ensure that diseases common to males and females are studied on a separate gender basis rather than a male-only basis.

Through our National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), we are actively committed to ensuring there is more research into women’s health, and that women’s voices and priorities are placed at the heart of this research.

We know that women have been under-represented in some research areas, particularly women in ethnic minority groups, older women, women of reproductive age, disabled women and LGBT+ women. This has implications for the health and care they receive, their options and awareness of treatments, the support they can access afterwards, and their health outcomes. To address this gap, applicants are now required to build inclusion into their research design as a condition of NIHR funding.

As highlighted in the newly published Renewed Women’s Health Strategy for England, the Department has strengthened NIHR conditions of funding by making it mandatory for researchers to account for sex and gender in their research applications. This move aims to tackle significant and persistent gaps in health and care research.

Alongside this, the NIHR’s Research Inclusion Strategy 2022-2027 sets out how NIHR will become a more inclusive funder of research and widen access to participation in clinical trials. The strategy has been designed to address inequalities associated with the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010.

Through the ongoing systematic collection of data on sex, ethnicity and age of participants taking part in NIHR research, we can monitor progress and continue to champion the inclusion of under-represented groups.