Machluf Y, Chaiter Y, Tal O. Gender medicine: Lessons from COVID-19 and other medical conditions for designing health policy. World J Clin Cases 2020; 8(17): 3645-3668 [PMID: 32953842 DOI: 10.12998/wjcc.v8.i17.3645]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Yoram Chaiter, MD, MSc, Academic Research, Senior Researcher, The Israeli Center for Emerging Technologies in Hospitals and Hospital-based Health Technology Assessment, Shamir (Assaf Harofeh) Medical Center, Zerifin 7030100, Israel. chaiter@bezeqint.net
Research Domain of This Article
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Clin Cases. Sep 6, 2020; 8(17): 3645-3668 Published online Sep 6, 2020. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v8.i17.3645
Gender medicine: Lessons from COVID-19 and other medical conditions for designing health policy
Yossy Machluf, Yoram Chaiter, Orna Tal
Yossy Machluf, Shamir Research Institute, University of Haifa, Kazerin 1290000, Israel
Yoram Chaiter, Orna Tal, The Israeli Center for Emerging Technologies in Hospitals and Hospital-based Health Technology Assessment, Shamir (Assaf Harofeh) Medical Center, Zerifin 7030100, Israel
Orna Tal, Shamir (Assaf Harofeh) Medical Center, Affiliated to the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Zerifin 7030100, Israel
Orna Tal, Department of Management, Program of Public Health and Health System Administration, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan 5290002, Israel
Author contributions: All authors equally contributed to this paper with conception and design of the study, literature review and analysis, drafting and critical revision and editing, and final approval of the final version; Machluf Y conceived and prepared the figures.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there are no commercial or financial or any other relationships that could be construed or perceived by the academic or medical communities as representing a potential conflict of interest. The opinions expressed in this manuscript represent the consensus of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the formal position of the affiliated institutions.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Yoram Chaiter, MD, MSc, Academic Research, Senior Researcher, The Israeli Center for Emerging Technologies in Hospitals and Hospital-based Health Technology Assessment, Shamir (Assaf Harofeh) Medical Center, Zerifin 7030100, Israel. chaiter@bezeqint.net
Received: April 24, 2020 Peer-review started: April 24, 2020 First decision: May 15, 2020 Revised: May 29, 2020 Accepted: August 12, 2020 Article in press: August 12, 2020 Published online: September 6, 2020
Core Tip
Core tip: An accumulating body of evidence demonstrates gender-specific differences in medical conditions, in terms of prevalence, incidence, prognosis, severity and comorbidity. Yet, little has been translated into an approach to gender-specific treatments, guidelines and prevention strategies. The evidence and gaps are discussed by providing four examples: asthma, obesity, chronic kidney disease and coronavirus disease 2019. We propose a broader approach to gender medicine that integrates information regarding medical profiles of coexisting medical conditions, rather than focusing on a single disease, considers the dynamics of medical profiles across developmental stages, focuses on adolescence, paving the way for adulthood morbidity, and is adjusted to diverse risk factors, and hence tailored to diverse subpopulations.
