This Is Public Health Book Club discussion

Good Afternoon and Happy Wednesday! Below are the discussion questions for Chapters 1-8. Please respond to any or all, we would love to hear your thoughts!

- How does the lack of gender-disaggregated data affect decision-making in both public and private sectors?
- In Chapter 2, "The Default Male," Perez discusses how research often uses male bodies as the default. What are the implications of this for medical treatment and healthcare outcomes for women?
- Perez frequently highlights how design and urban planning often fail to account for women's specific needs (e.g., transportation and public spaces). What are some potential solutions for making cities more inclusive and equitable?
- In Chapter 4, "The Data Gap," the author discusses the underrepresentation of women in clinical trials and the resulting negative impact on health outcomes. What are the ethical implications of this oversight, and how can research practices be improved to ensure gender inclusivity?
- How does the gender data gap intersect with other forms of inequity?

Kelcy wrote: "Good Afternoon and Happy Wednesday! Below are the discussion questions for Chapters 1-8. Please respond to any or all, we would love to hear your thoughts!

- How does the lack of gender-disaggrega..."

I think the biggest ethical implications of the underrepresentation of women in clinical trials has to do with beneficence and risk of harm. It typically isn’t safe or practical to assume that the results of a study can be generalized to a population that is not represented in the sample. When women aren’t represented in a sample, we cannot be certain that the benefits observed in a trial can be generalized to everyone regardless of gender. Along with the theme of this book, this underrepresentation can lead women to be more likely to experience harm from treatments that undergo this research. For example, a 2020 article by Zucker and Predergast found that differences in pharmacokinetics may be why women are more likely to experience adverse drug reactions. I think the solution to this lies in a deeper examination of why women are not being recruited to begin with. If we can use this book as a guide, we can guess that one reason might be that clinical trials can require significant time out of a person’s day that women with caretaking responsibilities may not have, and they can require travel that (as shown in this book) may be harder for women to complete. Maybe a potential solution could feature some sort of childcare as part of the trial or assistance with transportation?