New BMJ Collection, in partnership with the Gates Foundation, exposes persistent inequities in women's health and charts a path for change
Women's health is not a niche issue. It is fundamental to global health and prosperity. Women outlive men, yet spend 25% more time in poor health, facing conditions that affect them disproportionately or uniquely. Despite comprising half the world's population, women in all their diversity remain underrepresented in global research and innovation. Just 1% of healthcare research and development (R&D) is invested in female-specific conditions beyond oncology.
The new "BMJ Collection on women's health innovation", developed in partnership with the Gates Foundation, examines how equitable innovation can transform women's health. Rather than a conventional report or white paper, the Collection of original articles brings together evidence and expertise to outline steps for embedding equity into research, technology, policy, and leadership, ensuring future innovation and advances are designed for women's needs and realities.
Drawing on contributions from experts in 14 countries across six continents, the Collection explores how advances in data science, artificial intelligence, regulatory reform, decolonial thinking, and women's leadership can close the women's health gap, from cervical cancer screening in low-income settings to clinical trials that reflect women's bodies. The articles span six domains identified in the Women's Health Innovation Opportunity Map, examining how progress in data, research design, policy, social determinants, leadership, and careers can improve health outcomes.
The challenge remains stark. Only 5% of global health R&D targets female-specific conditions, and women continue to be underrepresented in clinical research, limiting the effectiveness and safety of many treatments. They make up 70% of the health workforce but hold just a quarter of leadership roles, and even proven tools such as the HPV vaccine fail to reach millions due to systemic inequities, with 90% of cervical cancer deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries.
This Collection argues that technology alone cannot solve these inequities. Without attention to context, affordability, political environments, and systemic barriers, even proven innovations fail to reach those most in need, and poorly designed digital tools risk reinforcing inequalities rather than reducing them.
"We will close out 2025 in defiance of how it began, by championing the fact that women, in all their diversities, are not passive to political tides but powerful agents of change. Their leadership will strengthen women's health, innovation, rights, and the entire global health ecosystem. But sustaining that momentum, especially amid shrinking public budgets, will require continued support from government, civil society, philanthropy and business to fuel the wave of innovation women's health so urgently needs."
Dr Jocalyn Clark
The BMJ's International Editor and editorial lead for this special collection
Main articles in the BMJ Collection on women's health innovation
Editorial
The growing movement around women's health innovation is welcomed, but to be genuinely transformative it must be political, argues Jocalyn Clark
Analysis
Innovative design and modelling to improve sex and gender analysis in clinical trials
Jane Hirst and colleagues argue that novel modelling approaches using routinely collected data can be only as representative and complete as the original data, and that bridging the sex and gender gap through contemporary, innovative clinical trial designs could be a crucial way forward
Digital health technologies to transform women's health innovation and inclusive research
Bola Grace and colleagues argue that using digital health technologies ethically can increase the scope and scale of research and connect systems to improve women's health
Effective regulation of technology in women's health and healthcare
Carmel Schachar and colleagues argue that femtech requires robust and stringent privacy and security safeguards because of the sensitivity of the data
AI supported diagnostic innovations for impact in global women's health
Nina Linder and colleagues examine how artificial intelligence could be applied to diagnostic methods that rely on highly trained experts, such as cytological screening for cervical cancer, enabling implementation even in resource limited settings
Decolonising women's health innovation
Tiffany Nassiri-Ansari and colleagues set out how a decolonial feminist approach to innovation could produce greater gender equality and health equity
Leadership and culture change to advance innovation in women's health
Sapna Kedia and colleagues argue that equitable leadership, supported by training and systemic reform and rooted in marginalised groups' experiences and community insight, can transform the innovation cycle, from research and development to delivery, making health technologies more inclusive and impactful
Designing clinical practice guidelines for equitable, inclusive and contextualized care
Sabine Oertelt-Prigione and colleagues argue that European clinical practice guidelines need standardised, inclusive, sex and gender sensitive development to not only guide healthcare but also drive innovation and research agendas
Opinion
We need a broader perspective on innovations to advance a women and health agenda
Although biotech innovations have contributed to improvements in health outcomes, we need more comprehensive health innovation to tackle persistent gender and intersectional equity gaps, argue Karla Unger Saldaña and colleagues
Reshaping research and development through women's leadership
To achieve equitable health systems women need to be the architects of innovation, not merely its recipients, says Fara Ndiaye
Reimagining women's health is a global imperative
The choices and investments we make to advance women's health now will define our shared health and prosperity in the future, writes Ru Cheng
