Thank you, Madame Chair.
I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to discuss the issue of sex- and gender-based analysis and to speak to you on how the Canadian Institutes of Health Research is supporting the integration of sex and gender in its research and its programs.
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research, or CIHR, is the Government of Canada agency responsible for supporting health research excellence in universities, hospitals and research centres across Canada.
To achieve its mandate, CIHR supports research through a unique interdisciplinary structure made up of 13 institutes. The mission of CIHR's Institute of Gender and Health, of which I am currently the Scientific Director, is to foster research excellence regarding the influence of gender and sex on the health of women, men and gender-diverse people throughout life, and to apply these research findings to identify and address pressing health challenges.
It's pretty well established that sex- and gender-based factors affect health practices, outcomes, and access to health care, yet these important factors—as my colleague showed you—are often not taken into consideration. For example, the majority of basic science research is conducted on male-only animals; women continue to be under-represented in clinical trials; and, issues such as depression and suicide have been poorly studied and poorly addressed in men and boys here in Canada.
As a physician, treating patients gives me first-hand experience of how research excellence can lead to better health for men, women, boys, girls, and gender-diverse people. Daily I am reminded that to truly transform the health outcomes of Canadians, we need more scientific discoveries, treatments, and effective translations of the evidence that account for sex and gender in meaningful ways. To me, this idea is at the core of personalized medicine. After all, what trait is more personal to each of us than the sex we were born with or the gender we identify with?
CIHR has made important progress towards addressing these health and research gaps. For example, as of December 2010, after the SGBA policy came into effect, all researchers applying for CIHR funding, regardless of discipline, are asked to consider how sex and gender are accounted for in their study.
I heard a question about baseline measurement before. At baseline, what proportion of CIHR applicants do you think said “yes, we think of it”? Any takers?
It was 10%. Ten per cent of CIHR applicants reported that they had incorporated sex and gender into their research design. By last year, that number had increased to 50%. The main barrier, it seemed, for conducting SGBA was a lack of knowledge, a lack of skills, and the confidence to actually conduct the analysis and incorporate it into their research.
What did we do about this? We developed our interactive online training modules, which were launched this week, to promote competency among the researchers and also among the peer reviewers, the people who evaluate and decide if people get funded, on whether sex and gender are appropriately integrated into the research study. The launch of these modules has been highly anticipated and positively received, and I could, if you'd like, show you evidence of effectiveness in the first 300 users.
Even before the official launch this week, the National Institutes of Health in the U.S. shared the link to our modules with their 11,000 followers on Twitter. For this reason, as well as our role at the gender advisory board of the European Union, Canada is becoming an international leader in the science, implementation, and evaluation of SGBA.
When researchers understand the importance of sex and gender and apply a sex-and-gender lens to their research, Canadians benefit. That's why CIHR works to translate research findings into evidence-based practices, programs, and policies.
For example, a few months ago, we were invited to a CIHR “Best Brains Exchange” in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which I facilitated, on the topic of keeping older adults healthy and engaged in their community, socially and economically. Researchers from across Canada came together with policy-makers to share best available evidence on innovative, evidence-based, sex- and gender-responsive interventions to help inform the Nova Scotia government's seniors' framework and action plan.
We call these researchers who provide evidence our “sex and gender champions”. Later I could talk a little bit about how we're operationalizing that.
The researchers shared best practices for improving not just the health and prosperity of older adults; we also addressed gender equity issues. I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with what the World Health Organization calls “gender transformative” policies and programs as opposed to “gender unequal” or “gender blind” approaches. Gender transformation is currently the gold standard, we hope, to apply SGBA to health policies and programs here in Canada.
As a leading contributor to the health portfolio's sex- and gender-based analysis policy and to the tri-agency policy statement on equity, CIHR is undertaking a thorough review of its operations to inform an SGBA implementation plan and support performance measurement in this area. Through these activities, CIHR will be able to report against its multilateral commitments to Status of Women Canada, the tri-agency working group on equity, and the health portfolio's SGBA policy under a single lens.
CIHR also works with its sister granting agencies, as well as the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, to plan and host gender summit 2017, which will be held in November in Montreal. You're all invited.
In closing, Madam Chair, let me assure you that CIHR is committed to ensuring the research it funds benefits women and men equally, and to applying sex- and gender-based analysis to its programs, processes and policies.
Again, I wish to thank you for the opportunity to speak on this important issue.
I will be pleased to answer any of your questions.