Question Period Note: National women's health research initiative

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• Women experience poorer health from missed diagnoses, minimized symptoms, greater burdens of specific diseases, and poorly targeted treatment compared to men.
• Mr. Speaker, women face unique challenges that need to be specifically researched in order to improve their health outcomes.
• This includes cervical and ovarian cancer, sexual and reproductive health, gender-based violence, and health during pregnancy to name a few.
• The creation of the National Women’s Health Research Initiative will advance a coordinated research program that addresses under-researched and high-priority areas of women’s health and ensure new evidence improves women’s care and health outcomes.
• This dedicated investment will help improve health outcomes and eliminate the gaps in quality of care for women and will ensure future research will continue on these important issues.

Budget 2021 committed $20 million over 5 years starting in 2021-22, to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to support a new National Institute for Women’s Health Research.

The National Women’s Health Research Initiative (NWHRI) will advance a coordinated research program that addresses under-researched and high-priority areas of women’s health and will ensure new evidence improves women’s and gender-diverse people’s care and health outcomes. It will also promote an intersectional lens to research and care to tackle persistent gaps for all women, including for Indigenous, Black, and racialized women, women with disabilities, and members of Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (2SLGBTQIA) communities. The Initiative will transform women’s health research and practice in Canada by producing and implementing a community-based approach, committed to the principles of equity, diversity, inclusivity, and Indigenous Rights.

The National Women’s Health Research Initiative will consist of two funding streams: (1) the Pan-Canadian Women’s Health Coalition and (2) the Innovation Fund.
1) The Coalition will be composed of hubs across Canada linked through a coordinating centre that will work together to maximize the visibility and impact of women’s health research and practice in Canada. The hubs and the coordinating centre will be led by diverse teams consisting of Canadian non-governmental organizations (including community organizations and regional health authorities), healthcare professionals, early career researchers and trainees, Indigenous Peoples, and people with lived and living experience navigating women’s health. Together, they will mobilize new and existing knowledge into effective, gender-sensitive, and culturally appropriate women’s health services across Canada.

2) The innovation fund is the second funding stream under the National Women’s Health Research Initiative. Two funding opportunities will be launched through the Innovation Fund:
i. Proof of Principle Grants to support biomedical research by teams proposing bold and innovative research questions in women’s health.
ii. Operating Grants to support the following areas of women’s health: Translational research in healthcare diagnostics, therapeutics, and devices; and Healthcare implementation research to remove barriers to access to healthcare

All funded research projects will be required to link with the Coalition to identify emerging knowledge mobilization opportunities to support improvements in women’s health policy, practice, and services.

Research on women’s health funded through the Institute for Women’s Health would build on the investments and expertise that are already being supported by CIHR and its IGH. This includes research in areas such as cervical cancer, gender-based violence, ovarian cancer, women’s heart health, and women’s brain health. It also includes initiatives to build capacity among women’s health researchers (e.g. the Indigenous Gender and Wellness Initiative, the Women’s Health Clinical Mentorship Grant), and to foster the integration of sex and gender within the broader health research ecosystem and deepen our understanding of how biological and social influences interact to affect health and disease (e.g. the Sex- and Gender-Based Analysis Policy-Research Partnerships, Sex and Gender Science Chairs).

• Budget 2021 committed $20 million over 5 years starting in 2021-22, to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to support a new National Institute for Women’s Health Research.