According to a recent report from the Women’s Age Lab at Women’s College Hospital collective action and a concerted effort is needed for Canadians to produce more ‘women’s research’.
While highlighting the current gaps and past tendencies to focus on investigations on just women’s reproductive health and their frailty when aging, the authors also cite the urgent need to stop lumping women of all ages together homogeneously.
Older women’s interconnected needs need to be recognized in new and different ways both individually and in the care system claims the report. “Whether in health research or policy, the experiences of those 65 years-of-age and older have been considered as one category in the past. Yet, in reality, a 65-year-old is different from an 80-year old, who is different from a 95 year old”. Simply put, according to the recommendations, we need to realize the basic fact that older women are different from both older men and younger women and should be treated as such.
The report claims that our current status quo makes older women more vulnerable and 85-year-old+ women are at greater risk when facing their daily health and systemic challenges when they are overlooked in policymaking, research and healthcare delivery. Prime examples: there are way more paediatricians than geriatricians—a noted imbalance based on population statistics and only 5.9% of grants in Canada and UK are focused on female scientific outcomes.
The way forward according to the report is to avoid failing this major part of the population. Recommendations for a more inclusive, sustainable future that’s tailored to inclusion of older women require a dedicated approach to: enhanced data collection, tailored interventions and guidelines that considers sex, gender, and age difference. This will not only lead to minimized drug harm and improve outcomes but will lead to something we all recognize as important – supporting older women’s preferences and desire to age in place.
Read the report
https://www.womensacademics.ca/womens-age-lab/news-publications/wal2024report/
Publisher/Editor
Caroline Tapp-McDougall
caroline@bcsgroup.com
Photo: iStock
