A new campaign has been launched to mobilize donors to address women’s health-care research, an area experts say has been long overlooked.
The initiative called Women’s Health Circle was launched by the MUHC Foundation in Montreal aims to bring together up to 500 women donors to fill the gaps in research of health issues affecting women and to improve their treatment.
Marie-Hélène Laramée, president and CEO of MUCH Foundation, said those gaps were reflective of the difference in philanthropy levels between men and women.
“(Women) only contribute about 40 to 60 per cent of what men contribute,” Laramée said. “And, so I don’t think it’s a surprise today that our particular interests are not represented philanthropically.”
“By getting together and putting all of our efforts and philanthropic dollars together, we’ll be able to finally move that needle for generations to come,” Laramée added.
So far, 90 women have joined the campaign and donated about $8.9 million to fund various projects.
“We have women who have great leadership and they’re attracting other women to join us,” said Isabelle Marcoux, president of Women’s Health Circle.
Six projects have been selected for funding, including initiatives focused on ovarian cancer, endometriosis, menopause and cardiovascular disease.
At the Research Institute of the MUHC, one team is studying how cardiovascular risk changes throughout a woman’s life, from menstruation to post-menopause.
“In our research, we try to identify the critical times that we can identify these risks early, and not being reactive, but being proactive to be able to create better futures for the women,” says Dr. Stella Daskalopoulou, clinician scientist at the MUHC Research Institute and full professor of medicine at McGill University.
Women’s Health Circle is also funding an initiative to increase women’s participation in clinical trials with the goal of improving diagnosis, treatment and outcomes.
“Women were not included in clinical trials before 1997 for good reasons,” Laramée said. “I think we were trying to protect the fetus for women who were in the age of carrying a child. But the result is that today we don’t have the right data that allows us to care for women in the right ways.”
Laramée adds that 78 per cent of early heart attack signs are missed in women because of this gap in data.
“Inclusion of more women in clinical trials is going to have huge impact in our understanding of how to better manage, treat and diagnose women with disease,” says Dr. Rhian Touyz, chief scientific officer at the MUHC Research Institute.
“So I think emphasizing the importance of more women in clinical trials could have immediate impact at many levels for various diseases.”
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