Endometriosis receives less funds for research 

It is  a well known fact that women’s health gets far less research funding than other medical research, or conditions that affect men. As for endometriosis, the lack of research is particularly disappointing. A disease that affects almost 200 million of women around the world, a disease that affects fertility, a disease with a socio-economic impact receives disproportionately low research funding compared with how serious it can be. 

This debilitating condition can impact day-to-day life, education, work, mental health, and society, with no cure so far, is so under researched. 

A recent study published in the Journal of Endometriosis and Uterine Disorders highlights the facts that the European Union has provided limited investments for the disease research so far.  

Analysing the COmmunity Research and Development Information Service EU databases, for overall research projects, out of the 145,983 items that were found, endometriosis related projects were 27, out of which only 10 were directly related to endometriosis. In terms of money spent on research the endometriosis-specific projects received overall funds for about 15 million euros. 

The European Union is not the only part of the world that does not provide sufficient funds to endometriosis. Last year, an article in Nature noted that in the USA health issues that affect women get less funding than health issues that affect men, with the National Institute of Health allocating only 0.038% of its 2022-health budget to endometriosis research. This means that just $16 million was allocated for endometriosis research, an equivalent of $2 per woman with endometriosis/year), while Crohn’s disease received $90 M ($130/person with Crohn’s/year). 

Although in 2020, the U.S. government announced that the funding for endometriosis research would be doubled to $26 million annually, two years later the budget was as seen above, $16 million. In comparison with endometriosis, in 2020, the research spending on diabetes was $1,156 million.

In the UK things are pretty much the same. In 5 years since 2014, based on the information presented by Nature, only £96 million were spent on women’s health issues.  The UK research collaboration states that less than 2.5% of publicly funded research is dedicated to reproductive health. The focus on research seems to be, predominantly on male conditions. For example, statistics show that there is five times more research into erectile dysfunction, which affects 19% of men, than into premenstrual syndrome, which affects 90% of women.