Title: Prevailing gender inequality in clinical trials: a blow to health rights of women

Authors: Monika Punia; Maryam Ishrat Beg

Addresses: School of Law, Manipal University Jaipur, Rajasthan, India; Manipal Law School, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India ' School of Law, Manipal University Jaipur, Rajasthan, India

Abstract: Gender inequality does persist in many crucial areas of society and health is one of them. Due to the underrepresentation of women in clinical trials, an entire gender is suffering a fatal blow on their right to health. With time, it has also been analysed that various diagnostic methods that were rendered ineffective in males were working efficiently for women, and vice versa. Ignorance of the health rights of women in the country is not just limited to impacting a gender in the society; however, it also hampers the economy, life expectancy, family support, health expenditure, etc., of a country. It is high time that the international instruments do focus on maintaining and updating healthcare structure equally for both genders and gender-specific studies are not to be considered valid in the further approval processes. Later similar changes could be brought to the domestic front as well.

Keywords: health; women; underrepresentation; clinical trials; gender inequality; healthcare; rights; treatment; diagnosis; law.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHRCS.2024.137718

International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies, 2024 Vol.11 No.2, pp.117 - 129

Received: 04 Aug 2022
Accepted: 19 Sep 2022
Published online: 04 Apr 2024 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article