We participate in the creation of a tool to incorporate the perspective of sex and gender in research content

A tool for integrating the gender and sex perspective has recently been published, which is designed to guide researchers when considering the incorporation of sex and/or gender in studies of basic, clinical, health services and health sciences. public. The tool has been developed by a working group with professionals from different research institutions in Catalonia, including researcher Constanza Jacques from IDIAPJGol.

The tool is made up of:

• A list of questions that address the integration of sex/gender in research.
• A list of sub-questions that allow each question to be illustrated with specific aspects.
• Some extra contributions with examples on how to incorporate the aspects of sex and gender.

When people being studied in research can be differentiated by sex, the research should be designed and conducted in a way that can reveal sex-related differences, even if they are not initially expected (human subjects, human cells, or tissues/ cells/other animals used as models of human biology or physiology). When the study subjects can be differentiated by gender (shaped by social and cultural circumstances), the research should be carried out from this level of differentiation and explanation.

Although gender is different from sex, it is important to note that sex and gender interact in unexpected ways. Gender experiences can affect biology; sex and gender interact to influence health and disease processes throughout your life. For this reason, in this tool, the term "sex/gender" has been used,  to serve as an abbreviation for "and/or" in all cases. If the answer to any of the questions is negative, a reasonable explanation should inform why it is not possible or relevant to consider the sex/gender perspective.

You can check the tool at this link. In the website of the Agency for Health Quality and Evaluation of Catalonia (AQuAS) you can also find other related resources.