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The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is the Government of Canada's agency for health research. Through CIHR, the Government of Canada invested approximately $23.7 million in 2004-05 in research on gender and health across Canada.
Heart disease is different in women and men - because of both biological and genetic factors (sex) and social and behavioural factors (gender). But little is known about most of these differences - their causes, their manifestations and their results.
The Institute, along with its partners, including CIHR's Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health, Heart and Stroke Foundation, and the Lung Association, is investing more than $7 million to support four teams that are studying cardiovascular health for both men and women. Among the researchers receiving funding is Dr. Louise Pilote (McGill University), who is bringing together more than 30 experts in fields as varied as molecular genetics, biostatistics, sociology and cardiology, to learn more about the role of sex and gender in the development, diagnosis, care and outcome of cardiovascular disease.
A lifetime in research has convinced Dr. Lorraine Greaves that we live in a women-blaming society and not a women-centred one - something she believes needs to change.
As a recognized leader in the area of women's health research, Executive Director of the British Columbia Centre of Excellence for Women's Health (BCCEWH), and co-founder of the Centre for Research on Violence Against Women and Children, Dr. Greaves is well known for her research into tobacco use and addiction, violence and gender influences on women's health.
Dr. Greaves argues that social, psychological and medical approaches have often been concerned with blaming women for unhealthy behaviours. To counter this, she takes a women-centred approach to research that includes policy makers, communities and academics, working together to improve women's health and well-being.
This approach is reflected in her research into women and tobacco use. Her first book, Smoke Screen: Women's Smoking and Social Control, published in 1996, examined the historical and cultural influences on women's smoking.
In addition, Dr. Greaves cites how health promotion campaigns and physicians often blame women for smoking or drinking during pregnancy. She believes an approach that is equally concerned with the health of both women and children would attract addicted women to treatment programs, rather than avoiding treatment and harm reduction because of the stigma attached to substance use during pregnancy.
In 2003, Dr. Greaves launched the CIHR-funded Integrated Mentor Program in Addictions Research Training (IMPART) at the BCCEWH as the first mentor-training program for gender, women and addiction researchers in Canada. IMPART brings together researchers from a multitude of disciplines, from neurobiology to sociology to nursing, in an effort to understand addiction in the context of sex and gender, to be better able to develop treatment, services and health policy.
"We're collectively doing research and training from cell to society," says Dr. Greaves.
Through her voluntary work as Vice-President and co-founder of the International Network of Women against Tobacco, Dr. Greaves also investigates tobacco's addictive effects on the developing world. It's a wider arena, but her underlying focus remains the same - to remove blame and focus on healthy outcomes for girls and women.
The CIHR Institute
The CIHR Institute of Gender and Health, under the leadership of Scientific Director Dr. Miriam Stewart, supports research to address how sex and gender interact with other factors that influence health to create conditions and problems that are unique, more prevalent, more serious or different with respect to risk factors or effective interventions for women and for men, girls and boys.
The first national research institute of its kind in the world, the Institute of Gender and Health focuses on five strategic priorities: access and equity for marginalized populations; gender and chronic conditions; gender and health across the lifespan; promoting positive health behaviours; and gender and the environment. The Institute supports research in a wide range of areas that addresses these priorities, including global health, rural and northern health, mental health, breast cancer, prostate cancer, cardiovascular health, Alzheimer's disease, immunity, early child development, palliative care, obesity, genomics and tobacco use.
The Institute of Gender and Health has led the Reducing Health Disparities initiative which focuses on vulnerable populations such as single parents, children and youth in disadvantaged circumstances, and women. This initiative has attracted numerous national and international partners.
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research is the Government of Canada's agency for health research. Its objective is to excel, according to internationally accepted standards of scientific excellence, in the creation of new knowledge and its translation into improved health for Canadians, more effective health services and products and a strengthened Canadian health care system. Composed of 13 Institutes, CIHR provides leadership and support to close to 10,000 researchers and trainees in every province of Canada.
