Thread by @realscientists

As wonderfully described by @CCriadoPerez in her book ‘Invisible Women’, women are living in a world designed for men. Now in an era of increased data science, that means that there is a data bias towards men (1/5)

This wonderful book covers everything medical data (including ‘standard’ symptoms of heart attack) is based on men, that women are 47% more likely to be seriously injured in a car accident and asks ‘can snow clearing can be sexist?’ (2/5)

Current research shows that female uptake for clinical trials is still low (bmj.com/content/371/bm…) and even in trials where women are recruited, lots don’t provide gender disaggregated data. (3/5)

But what does this actually mean? In some cases, women are being given drugs that may not be as effective for them as in their male counterparts or practitioners may not be able to give complete advice - especially to pregnant or breastfeeding women! (4/5)

But it’s not just reduced representation of women. In my field, genetic epidemiology, almost all genome wide association studies have been performed on individuals of European decent (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…). I believe diverse scientists mean more representative research. (5/5)