Women weren’t required in US clinical research until June 10, 1993.
Only 1% of global healthcare research is invested in female-specific conditions beyond cancer.
Across 770 diseases, on average, women are diagnosed four years later than men.
Less than half of medical schools have women’s health curricula.
These are just four of the 100 staggering statistics compiled within Evvy’s newly released coffee table book that sheds light on the glaring sexism embedded in American healthcare. 100 Effed Facts About the Gender Health Gap, created by Evvy as an offshoot of their Equal Research Day 2024 campaign, is a “Very Incomplete List of Ways the Female Body Has Been Left Behind by Modern Medicine.”
Evvy is a care platform for women and people with vaginas that provides at-home vaginal microbiome testing and clinical care. Its mission is to close the gender health gap by discovering and leveraging overlooked female biomarkers, starting with the vaginal microbiome. As part of this mission, Evvy launched the annual Equal Research Day on June 10 each year to promote inclusive research and raise awareness for the gender health gap.
For this year’s Equal Research Day, they expanded their campaign by creating and distributing the limited edition 100 Effed Facts About the Gender Health Gap coffee table book. 100% of the proceeds from the book are being donated to Women’s Health Access Matters (WHAM) to help accelerate women’s research and funding. You can purchase the book at equalresearchday.com— though it is currently sold out, it will be restocked.
The 250-page book is striking and intentionally demands attention. It features a bright red printed softcover with a cut and foil-stamped jacket. Its significant size (8.5″ x 10.5″) takes up space and makes the interior imagery and text big, bold, and undeniable. The large circular motif on the cover features on every page of the book, symbolizing the gender health gap visually and replicating the sense of inaccessibility as it obscures imagery and text.
Evvy’s CMO, Laine Bruzek, led on the book’s creation. She answered a few of my questions below about the process, the importance of Evvy’s work, and the severity of the gender health gap.
The female body shouldn’t be a medical mystery.
At what point and why did your team decide to release a book to address the gender health gap? How is this book an extension of the work you’re already doing, and what does it provide that your other offerings don’t?
We founded Evvy because the female body shouldn’t be a medical mystery, but to this day, it is. On average, women are diagnosed four years later than men across 770+ diseases, in part because women weren’t required to be in US clinical research until June 10, 1993.
That’s why Evvy created a holiday called Equal Research Day on June 10— think Equal Pay Day but for the gender health gap. Every year, we invest in a large-scale campaign to raise money for Women’s Health Access Matters and bring awareness to the disparities in scientific and medical research. This book was published in honor of Equal Research Day 2024.
Year-round, Evvy focuses on pioneering precision clinical care for vaginal health powered by our state-of-the-art vaginal microbiome test. But Equal Research Day is when we step back and spark conversations about the gaps in women’s health more broadly.
What was the book development and design process like? It’s a distinct and visually compelling design, with the large circular gap motif throughout. How did that concept come about?
First, we decided to make a book because we need to be having more conversations about the gender health gap, and I believe in the power of physical artifacts to start those conversations.
Additionally, and unfortunately, the facts about the gender health gap speak for themselves. They are powerful, angering, and motivating, so a book is merely the best way to gather those facts in one place.
We decided to make a book because we need to be having more conversations about the gender health gap, and I believe in the power of physical artifacts to start those conversations.
Finally, we wanted to make something that could live at the center of where people are gathering— in your living room, in an office lounge, in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. All it takes is someone to open the book to get them hooked and want to talk about it. Each page is downright shocking when the facts are things like, “Women are 32% more likely to die if their surgeon is a man” or “Less than half of medical schools have women’s health curricula.”
When it comes to the design of the book, we wanted to infuse it with the sense of frustration and loss that women experience after delays in diagnoses, failed treatments, mystery symptoms with no answers, or medical gaslighting.
We realized that putting a huge graphic hole—a literal gap—on every page achieves that. It obscures key parts of photos, covers certain letters and words, and generally leaves the reader with a sense of incompleteness and loss, plus the motivation to uncover what’s behind it to fix it. That’s precisely how we hope readers will feel about the gender health gap when they’re done reading, too.
How did your team go about sourcing and curating the facts in the book?
There is no shortage of “effed” facts about women’s health— the hardest part was narrowing our book down to just 100. It was important to us to highlight gaps in healthcare across all categories—not just what typically falls under “women’s health”—so we initially had hundreds of facts across cancer, heart health, hormonal health, autoimmune disease, vaginal health, menstrual health, and beyond.
That makes this book one of the most comprehensive compilations of gender health gap facts ever assembled. While our team did the sourcing and curation, every fact featured in our coffee table book exists because a researcher persevered to bring it to life— not an easy task when funding for women’s health is so scarce.
What is Evvy doing on the clinical research side to close the gender health gap?
Evvy is closing the gender health gap by discovering and leveraging overlooked female biomarkers, starting with the vaginal microbiome.
Vaginal discomfort is a leading reason women seek healthcare advice (for conditions like bacterial vaginosis, yeast infections, recurrent UTIs, and more). Additionally, research has uncovered groundbreaking links between the vaginal microbiome and critical female health outcomes like infertility, STIs, preterm birth, gynecologic cancers, and more. Yet, the vaginal microbiome remains under-researched, and current standards for vaginal healthcare are underpinned by simplistic methods like microscopy and brute-force antibiotics.
In 2021, we launched the Evvy Vaginal Health Test, the world’s first CLIA-certified, at-home vaginal microbiome test that tests for 700+ bacteria and fungi with a single swab. Evvy’s larger vaginal healthcare platform is the first to combine state-of-the-art vaginal microbiome and STI testing, precision clinical care, and coaching to give women and people with vaginas the care they deserve. Through this platform, Evvy is building real-world datasets that can transform our understanding of complex female health conditions.
Our platform has not only provided tens of thousands of women and people with vaginas with better vaginal healthcare, but it has also built the world’s largest comprehensive dataset on the vaginal microbiome — enabling a new age of precision medicine.
Have you seen the gender health gap shrink in any way since Evvy’s inception? Is there any hope we can cling to? And inversely, what are the most critical areas where work still needs to be done?
One key way we can close the gender health gap is through innovation. Over the last few years, I have been greatly encouraged by the proliferation of brilliant founders (many of them female) tackling women’s health challenges across whole-body health, from cancer to heart health to menopause to vaginal health and beyond.
Some of the brightest minds are working on women’s health right now as researchers, doctors, policymakers, founders, and advocates— and that should be a source of great hope.
That said, we still have a long way to go when it comes to funding women’s health research. Only 1% of global healthcare research and innovation is invested in female-specific conditions beyond cancer— that’s just 1% for all of menopause, endometriosis, PCOS, vaginal health, and much, much more. Additionally, half as much funding goes to diseases that mainly affect women compared to those that mainly affect men. The incredible people building the future of women’s health can’t do so without the proper resources, and the funding gaps in women’s health are staggering and alarming.