FRIDAY, July 12, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- A new report finds research is sorely lacking on how chronic illnesses affect women, and it urged government agencies to do more to investigate how these diseases strike women differently. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine , commissioned by the Office of Research on Women's Health and released Wednesday, noted that women are disproportionately affected by chronic illnesses, including Alzheimer’s disease, depression and . "Although women on average live longer, chronic diseases may diminish women’s quality of life for years when compared with men," the report authors wrote.
"Chronic conditions in women contribute to substantial health care costs and have a significant effect on women’s productivity at work and at home." However, a scarcity of research on women’s health “hinders a comprehensive understanding of the impact on women” of chronic illnesses, they added. “Advances in our understanding of conditions like Alzheimer’s, heart disease and even chronic pain have largely been shaped by research focused on men.
At best, this means we don’t fully understand how these conditions affect women -- but at worst, it can mean a misdiagnosis, medical error or inappropriate treatment,” , chair of the committee that wrote the report, said in a . “This is not the first report from the National Academies to assert that women’s health is understudied," she noted. "It is long overdue for federal ag.