Unveiling the hidden crisis in women’s health: a deep dive into women’s pain, endometriosis & uterine fibroids

While long overdue, the crisis of women’s pain is gradually being unveiled at the global level. This report spotlights the issue, focusing on the bias against women’s pain and two underlying and neglected causes of this pain: endometriosis and uterine fibroids. It explores US NIH funding of these two conditions, seeking to benchmark this funding against the investment other conditions receive, as well as assessing funding in relation to their R&D needs.  

• Women disproportionately bear the burden of chronic pain, due in part to conditions that affect women exclusively, including endometriosis and uterine fibroids. Despite a higher incidence of chronic pain in women, however, their pain is frequently overlooked and inadequately managed.  
• While US NIH funding for endometriosis has risen to a peak in 2023, US NIH funding for both endometriosis and uterine fibroids is expected to plateau in 2024 and 2025.
• At the current levels, funding for both endometriosis and uterine fibroids falls well below the levels of funding received by several other conditions, including inflammatory bowel disease and osteoarthritis.
• Standardised comparisons of funding for endometriosis and uterine fibroids prove difficult, due to a lack of accurate and appropriate burden data. The incidence and prevalence of both conditions is underestimated, and women are disfavoured in the calculation of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs).
• Funding for endometriosis and uterine fibroids falls below the level required to meet R&D needs for novel non-invasive diagnostic tools and therapeutics.   
• Improving women’s experiences of pain will require a suite of solutions that addresses the issue at multiple levels. This will involve improving funding for research of women’s pain and its underlying conditions, as well as including women in clinical trials, designing burden metrics to cater to women, breaking down gender bias in healthcare and ensuring all have access to care, particularly women in low- and middle-income countries.