Our five-country transatlantic multidisciplinary network of investigators, trainees, and patient partners aims to integrate sex and gender dimensions in applied health research, to evaluate their impact on clinical cost-sensitive outcomes and patients reported outcomes related to quality of life in noncommunicable diseases including cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease, chronic kidney disease and neurological disease. We also aim to construct innovative ways to disseminate the application of gender measurement towards personalized approaches to chronic disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
Our research focuses on the following:
1. Gender-related variables.
2. Cost-sensitive and patient-reported outcome measures.
3. Knowledge translation and dissemination
Gender-related factors
Our consortium aims to identify and measure sex and gender-related factors that are country and disease specific. We will do this through a systematic assessment and collection of gender-related variables in a number of pre-existing (retrospective) databases and/or prospective ongoing cohorts accessible by Consortium partners. We will also focus on the following NCDs: cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome (diabetes and obesity), chronic kidney disease and neurological disease.
GOING-FWD Gender Related Factors wish List
Cost-sensitive and patient-reported outcome measures
Clinical outcomes (quality indicators of health care management and patient-reported outcome measures [PROMs]) will be identified and collected in the pre-existing (retrospective) databases and/or prospective ongoing cohorts. Associations will be analysed in cohorts as well as stratified by country, region, and NCDs. Life-course analysis of data across cohorts, countries and NCDs will be performed. We will partner with experts in large database analyses to find patterns in the cohort/country specific data using classification to determine categories, describe relationships between sex and gender, and predict how outcomes might change as the exposure (sex and gender characteristics) change.
Knowledge translation and dissemination
An interdisciplinary approach will be used to integrate sex and gender considerations across the age continuum in relation to physical and mental health. Anticipated impacts include education/training, policy, and risk estimation considering gender. Such ground-breaking work will inform the design of gender-responsive interventions to prevent, diagnose, treat and improve health outcomes across NCDs. Expected short term outputs include: a) sex and gender-sensitive education modules that will be country/region specific; b) Sex and gender informed guidelines/policy to prevent, diagnose, treat and improve outcomes across NCDs; c) e-Health and m-Health gender applications; and d) Personalized technologies to prevent, diagnose and treat NCDs
