In a recent revelation that may alter the way we look at drug side effects, a research team from Harvard's GenderSci Lab has proposed that gender-based social factors could explain why women report adverse drug events more frequently than men. According to a Harvard Gazette article, the prevailing wisdom that biology was chiefly to blame is being challenged by findings published in Social Science and Medicine.
Sarah Richardson, the Aramont Professor of the History of Science and director of the GenderSci Lab, spearheaded the studies along with Tamara Rushovich, a Ph.D. candidate at the Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and their colleagues from Emory and Tulane universities. The team utilized data from more than 33 million records from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System. "For a long time, the pattern in biomedical research has been to observe a sex disparity in outcomes, and to infer that this is due to biology,” Richardson told the Harvard Gazette. Believed to influence women's increased likelihood of side effects include gender stereotypes and identities, experiencing more intimate partner violence, and gendered discrimination within healthcare settings.
The researchers posit that societal tenets like gender norms and bias within clinical settings create an environment where women's concerns might not be taken as seriously, or where they are more likely to be prescribed certain medications. Katharine Lee from Tulane remarked, in a statement obtained by Harvard Gazette, “Our analyses show that gender — the social, structural, and experiential differences linked to individuals’ gender/sex identity across their lifetimes — is a powerful contributor to reports of adverse drug events and ultimately inequitable health outcomes.” In other words, it's not just about biological sex differences but also about how gendered experiences shape women’s and men’s health.
A secondary study, also part of the GenderSci Lab's work and published in JAMA Open Network, highlighted that when accounting for the differences in medication usage overall, the probability of sex disparity in adverse events dramatically decreased. This suggests that the sheer volume of drug consumption by women, who are more proactive seekers of healthcare, might account for the higher rates of reported side effects. They're more than just numbers on a page—these findings could pave the way for more nuanced treatment and understanding of gender disparities in medicine.
