Dr Sanne Peters from The George Institute UK has been invited to speak at a major global conference in November aimed at identifying and tackling sex and gender issues in science, research and innovation.

Gender Summit 7 Europe 2015 in Berlin, Germany will advance the understanding of when, how and why gender issues in research can produce different outcomes for women and men. It is part of a series of Gender Summits around the world with conferences also being held North America, Asia-Pacific and Africa.

Dr Peters is a Research Fellow in Epidemiology who will speak on her work in women’s health and sex-specific risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. 

“It is an honour to speak at this Summit, and to highlight the importance of a sex-specific approach to health research,” she said.

“Cardiovascular diseases are the biggest killers among women globally, yet are still largely seen as a 'man's problem'. Since women are often underrepresented in cardiovascular research, data on men are frequently used as the norm group for the entire population and clinical practices in women are frequently based on evidence obtained from male populations.

“With the wider availability of sex-disaggregated health research, we start to learn about important differences between men and women throughout the entire life course of cardiovascular diseases. Such information is relevant to the formulation of tailored strategies for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases in men and women.”

The George Institute is a strong supporter of sex-specific research and gender equality in science, recently committing to the UN Global Goals for sustainable future which advocated for equality in all fields, and joining the Science in Australia Gender Equity (SAGE) initiative, an Australian adaptation of the UK’s successful Athena SWAN Charter program.

Principal Director of The George Institute Professor Robyn Norton said: “The George Institute has always had strong gender representation in our team and we are pleased to be leaders in this area.”

Find out more about the Gender Summit 7 Europe 2015.

Today at the United Nations headquarters in New York City, 193 world leaders will commit to 17 Global Goals that will guide economic, social and government policy for the next 15 years. The goals identify issues such as poverty, education, health, climate change and more as major priority areas to focus on in order to achieve sustainable development.

The George Institute for Global Health is a strong supporter and advocate of these Global Goals. Goal Three “Good health and wellbeing: ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages” aligns very closely with our mission to “improve the health of millions of people worldwide”. At the same time much of our work also upholds Goal Five “Gender equality”, Goal 10 “Reduced inequalities” plus many others.

“These goals provide targets for people, organisations and governments to work towards over the next 15 years,” said Principal Director of The George Institute Professor Robyn Norton. “By committing ourselves to these goals, we can collectively achieve development that is as good for humanity and the environment as it is for business and the economy.”

The Global Goals are an offshoot of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were launched in 2000 with a target year of 2015.  Recognising the success of the MDGs and that a new development agenda was needed, a number of countries agreed in 2012 at Rio+20, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, to develop a set of sustainable development goals for beyond 2015.

The George Institute’s work is based on our belief that medical research involves people, not test tubes: our goal is to generate research outputs that can lead to real-world change within a five-year timeframe, rather than the decades-long timeframes of other research fields. Examples of our projects currently underway in the UK include:

• Investigating possible links between birth weight and childhood cancer
• Using IT to support heart failure patients in the community.

“With the new Global Goals focusing on a broader range of health issues than the MDGs, there are substantial opportunities for The George Institute to play an important role in the achievement of these goals,” said Professor Norton, “and we look forward to partnering with colleagues across the world to ensure their success.”

Find out more about the Global Goals.

Oxford University’s George Institute for Global Health is today collaborating with Patients Know Best (PKB), the world’s only fully patient controlled medical records system, on a research trial studying how home monitoring tools can support heart failure patients.

The Oxford University’s Healthcare Innovation and Evaluation unit of the George Institute for Global Health is lead by Prof. Kazem Rahimi and is one of the leading research centres in the area of integrated digital health worldwide. 

The SUPPORT-HF research programme aims to develop and evaluate an integrated third generation home monitoring system for management of patients with heart failure in the UK. The first phase of the programme has successfully completed the development of a home monitoring system that is easy to use and well accepted by patients independently of their digital literacy.

In the second phase, the home-monitoring (HM) system is continuously being improved and assessed in an initial randomized controlled trial of about 200 to 350 patients. In that context, the team of researchers at Oxford University have started a pilot collaboration with Patients Know Best to test their ability to extract patients’ medical history from hospital electronic health records. Combined with the daily measurements (such as blood pressure, weight and symptoms) collected through the SUPPORT-HF HM system, this comprehensive patient profile will help the study’s specialist cardiology team to tailor and improve patient’s medical management. Ultimately the SUPPORT-HF programme aims to assess whether the developed home monitoring system improves the quality of life of patients living with heart failure and reduces unscheduled hospital admissions and avoidable death.

Prof. Kazem Rahimi, Associate Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Oxford, said:

“The wider aims of the project are all about understanding patients wellbeing to deliver better care – reducing mortality and improving quality of life. The first stage showed that home management tools can be of real benefit to heart failure patients. For the second phase, we want to leverage Patients Know Best’s technology to fully understand the value of an integrated electronic health record approach to remote healthcare management.“

Dr Mohammad Al-Ubaydli, founder and CEO of Patients Know Best said:

"Prof. Rahimi’s research brings together amazing remote monitoring devices and central decision support. We are proud that for this next phase of the research, PKB is a data integration platform for patients’ hospital electronic health records and makes that data available via the PKB API. This will allow building better algorithms and better interventions for patients."