Abstract
Much work has been done to promote sex and gender-based analyses in health research and to think critically about the influence of sex and gender on health behaviours and outcomes. However, despite this increased attention on sex and gender, there remain obstacles to effectively applying and measuring these concepts in health research. Some health researchers continue to ignore the concepts of sex and gender or incorrectly conflate their meanings. We report on a primer that was developed by the authors to help researchers understand and use the concepts of sex and gender in their work. We provide detailed definitions of sex and gender, discuss a sex and gender-based analysis (SGBA), and suggest three approaches for incorporating sex and gender in health research at various stages of the research process. We discuss our knowledge translation process and share some of the challenges we faced in disseminating our primer with key stakeholders. In conclusion, we stress the need for continued attention to sex and gender in health research.
Highlights
In the context of doing more sensitive, precise and relevant health research, there is an increasing emphasis on attending to issues of sex and gender
Certain disciplines are more familiar with these concepts than others; while gender has been a prominent concept in the social sciences for decades, and has influenced social science health research, it has only relatively recently begun to enter the lexicon of biomedical and clinical health researchers
We discuss the conceptual work that was the foundation for the primer, share the detailed definitions of sex and gender that we developed, and describe a threeprong approach to sex and gender-based analysis (SGBA)
Summary
Perhaps most useful in teaching about the health effects of sex and gender was the provision of case examples, which took participants through the process of applying SGBA and illustrated the impact of considering sex and gender in particular research instances These examples were tailored to be specific to each audience so that while the concepts of sex and gender were new, the material was http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/8/1/14 familiar and provided realistic examples of improvements that could be made. There has been speculation that gender roles positively influence the way that men interact with physicians when seeking help for injured knees, and that women's narrative speaking style is not as effective in http://www.equityhealthj.com/content/8/1/14 health care appointment settings as men's factual and tothe-point style [57] These examples illustrate the benefit of utilizing a SBGA in health research and illustrate the 'value-added' of such an approach. The workshops affirmed that more work is needed in this area, so that researchers are aware of sex and gender, but comfortable with the concepts and proficient in using them
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