Sex differences in health research and clinical guideline development

In current medical practice, research based evidence is an important foundation for clinical decision making. Clinical practice guidelines are a major instrument for keeping physicians up-to-date about this evidence. In order to provide optimal care to both men and women, it is important that sex differences are routinely considered in biomedical studies and that the results—positive or negative—are routinely reported in clinical guidelines. However, there is still limited attention given to sex differences in health research and in guideline development. Public organizations for the funding of health research and guideline development organizations can play a role in improving this situation.
This thesis presents a series of studies which evaluate the consideration of sex differences in health research and guideline development in the Netherlands by studying research proposals submitted to a Dutch financer of health research and the clinical guideline development process of two main Dutch guideline developing organizations.