Invisible Women - doing a Freud

A recent analysis of data from 22 million people from North America, Europe, Asia and Australasia found that women from lower socio-economic backgrounds are 25% more likely to suffer a heart attack than men in the same income bracket. (IW, p.217)

Although there is growing recognition of sex-specific determinants of outcomes, women remain under-represented in clinical trials, and sex-disaggregated diagnostic and management strategies are not currently recommended in clinical guidelines. Women remain more likely to experience delays in diagnosis, to be treated less aggressively and to have worse outcomes. As a consequence, cardiovascular disease in women remains understudied, underdiagnosed and undertreated.

To better understand the factors that impact underrepresentation of women in clinical trials, we performed an extensive literature search (as detailed in the Appendix) on articles that addressed the challenges in enrolment—motivators, facilitators, and barriers to the enrolment and continuation of women in clinical trials. We had initially aimed at a systematic review but there was a paucity of data to conduct an extensive review. We found only six articles that report on motivators, facilitators, and barriers for women to participate in cardiovascular medical trials. [my emphasis]

I’ve gotten into a Twitter–let’s call it debate, because I refrained from losing my shit about it. A male city planner wrote a thread about train/bike planning to promote cycling to/from stations (I’d link but it was in Hebrew). Specifically, a suggestion that people keep a second “station bike” at their destination station so they aren’t cycling to the station, bringing their bikes onto the train, and then continuing the journey from the destination station to the office, since many train systems don’t actually allow bikes on trains. To make people comfortable with leaving the station bike at the destination station overnight, they could store them in these locked storage sheds.

I replied to him that as a woman he’d not catch me dead in a shelter like that at night and he then proceeded to try to convince me that it’s safe (well lit, directly in front of station, with unobstructed walls). I’d love to know what you and the GFPs think.

I’ll add that the concept of a station bike absolutely works for me–my office is located about a mile away from the station of a Munich suburb and many of my colleagues keep a station bike. It’s these sheds specifically that gave me pause. I’d specifically be curious about why women would/wouldn’t use them.