Case Studies - Where the Evidence Base Is Uneven
Four areas where sex representation in the published literature has been measured and found wanting. Every figure below comes from the named paper beneath it, not from FemHealth.
Women account for more than half of cardiovascular deaths, but made up 41% of participants across 1,079 trials and 1.4 million participants (Rivera et al., JAMA Network Open, 2025). Classic cardiovascular research was conducted predominantly on middle-aged men, and the textbook presentation of a heart attack derives from that population.
Across 17 studies published since 2018, mean diagnostic delay ranged from 5.4 to 11.4 years, with large regional variation (De Corte et al., BJOG, 2025). Conditions that affect women almost exclusively remain underfunded relative to their burden.
The ratio in pharmacology preclinical studies worsened from 5:1 in 2009 to 5.8:1 in 2019, a decade after the NIH mandate on sex as a biological variable (Woitowich et al., eLife, 2020). Autoimmune conditions affect women at roughly a 3:1 ratio, yet early mechanistic work was often done on male animal models.
Across 574 R01 publications from 2017 to 2024, the share of sex-inclusive studies that actually analysed outcomes by sex was essentially flat nine years after the SABV mandate (Warden et al., Communications Medicine, 2026). Enrolling women and reporting on them separately are two different things.
Search results carry the participant sex breakdown, stated exclusions, and a label saying where each figure came from. How the signals are computed, and where they are weak, is set out on the methodology page. Start searching → - free to search, no account required.