Leadership and culture change to advance innovation in women’s health

The BMJ Pub Date : 2025-10-10 DOI:10.1136/bmj-2025-085994
Sapna Kedia, Sylvia Kiwuwa-Muyingo, Radhika Uppal, Julius Kirimi Sindi, Evelyn Gitau
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Abstract

Sapna Kedia and colleagues argue that equitable leadership, supported by training and systemic reform and rooted in marginalised groups’ experiences and community insight, can transform the innovation cycle, from research and development to delivery, making health technologies more inclusive and impactful When women are excluded from leadership, women’s health innovation is incomplete and inequitable and will continue to fall short. Women, especially those from low and middle income countries, remain under-represented in senior positions across global health institutions, research leadership, and innovation funding, even when the research and innovation concerns their own communities.1 Grant making mechanisms often favour institutions with extensive administrative infrastructure and previous funding experience, limiting access for women from under-resourced settings.2 Furthermore, institutional cultures reflect gendered expectations around leadership style, mobility, and availability. Historical systems that reward linear and uninterrupted career trajectories are misaligned with the realities of many women researchers, who may be balancing care giving responsibilities or facing other gendered constraints. The absence of women, particularly those from low and middle income countries, in research and innovation leadership has profound implications not only for equity but also for the effectiveness and relevance of health innovation and its impact on health outcomes. Clinical and medical research remains predominantly led by men. For example, many cardiovascular drug trials in South Asia have primarily enrolled men,3 resulting in diagnostic and treatment protocols that are based on male physiology and inadequately tested for effectiveness in women. In addition, health conditions that uniquely or disproportionately affect women, such as endometriosis and maternal morbidity, continue to be under-researched and underfunded.4 Beyond this, a broader spectrum of women’s health problems across the life course is often rendered invisible owing to the persistent focus on reproductive health.5 In this article, we argue that equitable leadership in health research …
领导和文化变革,推动妇女保健创新
Sapna Kedia及其同事认为,在培训和系统性改革的支持下,以边缘化群体的经验和社区洞察力为基础的公平领导可以改变创新周期,从研发到交付,使卫生技术更具包容性和影响力。当妇女被排除在领导之外时,妇女的卫生创新是不完整和不公平的,并且将继续不足。妇女,特别是来自低收入和中等收入国家的妇女,在全球卫生机构的高级职位、研究领导和创新资助方面的代表性仍然不足,即使研究和创新涉及她们自己的社区拨款机制往往有利于具有广泛行政基础设施和以前筹资经验的机构,从而限制了资源不足环境中的妇女获得资助的机会此外,制度文化反映了对领导风格、流动性和可用性的性别期望。奖励线性和不间断的职业轨迹的历史系统与许多女性研究人员的现实不一致,她们可能要平衡照顾责任或面临其他性别限制。妇女,特别是来自低收入和中等收入国家的妇女,在研究和创新领导中缺位,不仅对公平,而且对卫生创新的有效性和相关性及其对健康结果的影响产生深远影响。临床和医学研究仍然主要由男子领导。例如,南亚的许多心血管药物试验主要招募男性,3导致诊断和治疗方案基于男性生理学,对女性的有效性测试不足。此外,对子宫内膜异位症和产妇发病率等特别或不成比例地影响妇女的健康状况的研究和资助仍然不足除此之外,由于持续关注生殖健康,妇女整个生命过程中的一系列更广泛的健康问题往往被忽视在这篇文章中,我们认为卫生研究中的公平领导……
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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