Study: Women Routinely Get Less Active Treatment Than Men — SkimNews
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- University of St Andrews researchers analyzed 38 global studies and found that in 33 of them women were less likely to be offered active treatment than men with the same condition.
- Women with myocardial infarction, heart failure, or irregular heartbeat were more often given medication while men were more likely to receive a coronary bypass, stent, or other surgical treatment.
- Male Parkinson's patients were more likely to be referred for deep brain stimulation, and men with liver failure were more likely to receive transplants than women.
- Female kidney dialysis patients were less likely to receive permanent access and spent longer on catheters; women were also less likely to be prescribed statins or opioids for pain management.
- None of the 38 studies identified clinical guidelines recommending different treatment by sex, and researchers noted doctors more often attributed women's symptoms to anxiety and made more diagnostic errors with female patients.
- Dr Andrew O'Malley said the findings should prompt clinicians to check whether treatment is offered on clinical grounds rather than assumption, while Dr Miriam Veenhuizen said the consistency of the pattern across cardiology, surgery, transplant medicine, and emergency care survived statistical adjustment.
- For stroke and diabetes there was no significant sex difference in treatment, though women were more likely to be treated for dementia; former health secretary Wes Streeting called the broader gap "medical misogyny" in March, and the previous government appointed Lesley Regan as England's first women's health ambassador.
Why it matters: Roughly 87% of the 38 reviewed studies showed women receiving less aggressive treatment than men across cardiology, transplant medicine, and emergency care — and no clinical guideline in the dataset justified the disparity, pointing to clinician bias rather than medical rationale. With Streeting's 'medical misogyny' framing and a national health ambassador already appointed, the study gives policymakers measurable evidence that gender-blind protocols aren't being followed in practice.
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