Panel Discussion: (Critical Data Gaps and their Impacts on Women's Health & Agency). Moderator: Steven Kern (Deputy Director, Quantitative Sciences, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, United States). Panelists: Patrice Matchaba (President, Novartis US Foundation, United States); Nelly Mugo (Principal Senior Clinical Research Officer, Kenya Medical Research Institute; Associate Research Officer, Department of Global Health, University of Washington, Kenya); Signe Ratso (Deputy Director General, DG RTD, European Commission, Belgium); Anita Zaidi (President, Gender Equality, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, United States).
Panelists explore the absence of data on women’s health issues in early-stage R&D, deconstructing how and why the current R&D environment too often neglects them. Specifically, they reflect on how a persistent lack of gender-disaggregated data impacts fundamental understanding, decision making, and design and production of lifesaving tools for girls, women, and their communities. Panelists discuss the immediate steps, as well as long-term systemic changes, needed to close these gaps, with the goal of building more gender-balanced and inclusive global health R&D ecosystems.
From the 2022 meeting in Brussels, Belgium
Oct 25, 2022