WHAM was created in response to the considerable funding gap, historical exclusion, and underrepresentation of women in health research.
Women have been an understudied species since 1993. Many inequities and biases still exist. While some progress has been made since 1993, when the National Institutes of Health mandated that women and minorities be included in any government-funded health research, there’s still a long way to go. And it wasn’t until 2016 that female mice were mandated by NIH to be included in clinical research.
How is it possible that 52% of the population has been left so far behind in medical research?
In 2018, WHAM was founded by Carolee Lee, who convened a group of businesswomen motivated to create an innovative dialogue and establish data that could impact this situation. And how could we continue to make decisions based on information that excludes half of our workforce, 2/3 of our wealth holders, nearly all of our spenders, and those who make majority of healthcare decisions?
It became apparent to us that we lacked evidence; we lacked data about the economic costs, benefits, and social impacts of attention to sex and gender in health research. And in our experience, change starts with data. In order to create change, we commissioned the RAND Corporation in January 2020 to begin a rigorous, focused study to quantify the costs and socioeconomic benefits of increased research funding focused on women.
WHAM, Women’s Health Access Matters, was registered as a 501c3 in January 2021 to catalyze accelerated research and investment in women’s health research.
WHAM is committed to making an impact in diseases and conditions that exclusively, differently, or disproportionately affect women across our four primary disease verticals:
Autoimmune Disease
Brain Health
Cancer
Heart Health
WHAM is bringing new awareness, voices, resources, and partners to drive change by working with leading, economists, scientists, research institutions, business leaders, and public health experts.
The lives of women and men will vastly improve through research that is equally inclusive of women and men in trials – and female and male animals in preliminary research. By conducting research in parity and reporting gender outcomes separately, health breakthroughs will be accelerated, and health outcomes around the world improved.
As women benefit from this research and reduce their burden of disease, they will improve their own wellbeing, which is directly connected to the wellbeing of our economy.
Join the Community
Join us on twitter: @WHAMnow
Early AM meet up with fellow @WHAMnow Collaborative Member, @EOSaphire at #DiscoverBMB!
#WomenInSTEM @caroleewham
Carolee Lee, CEO @WHAMnow explains that accelerating women's health is an economic imperative during the @AARP @UN4Ageing briefing series on Better Data, Better Lives for #OlderPersons #longevityeconomy Watch the briefing and explore more insights
👉 http://spr.ly/60193C86F
Women & #AutoimmuneDisease: a thread
WHAM Collaborative Member Dr. Charlotte Owens shares "5 Things You Need To Create A Successful Career In Medicine." Dr. Owens is VP & Head of Center for Health Equity & Patient Affairs @takedapharma.
http://bit.ly/421bBDb
#BlackWomeninMedicine #WomenInMedicine
Women & Autoimmune disease - great session by @WHAMnow.
Dr Erica Ollmann Saphire says (paraphrasing) “If retail has figured out that you don’t sell the same jeans to men and women, we should be able to determine how to individual medical treatments based on sex.” @WHMayoClinic
We're celebrating #InternationalWomensDay this year by sharing some of the wins for women in terms of research, clinical trial inclusion, and funding & investment.
We still have work to do when it comes to closing the research gap and investment in industries like #FemTech.
1 in 5 Americans have an autoimmune disease...now, guess what % of those Americans are women.
Sign up for our roundtable discussion on women & autoimmune disease to learn more: http://bit.ly/Women-and-autoimmune-disease
#autoimmunedisease #womenshealth #3not30 #medicalresearchgap
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