Male and Female Participants in NIH-Funded Research Trials
Graph of the Week
This week’s graph illustrates the proportion of individuals who participated in research trials funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) between financial years (FY) 1995 and 2022 who were male and female.
Key Points
Females comprised over 50% of research participants in NIH-funded research trials every year except in 2017.
Averaged across all years from 1995 and 2022, females comprised 58% of participants in NIH-funded research trials.
[Nuzzo note: The above graph was updated with minor edits on April 16, 2025. The graph was originally published at The Nuzzo Letter on June 29, 2024. The original version of the graph is available for download as a pdf below.]
Bonus Commentary
For many years, academics, health officials, and journalists have claimed that women are “underrepresented” in medical research. This claim is not true. The data in the graph clearly show that women have comprised over 50% of participants in NIH-funded research since 1995. Moreover, women’s greater research representation has occurred over a backdrop of significantly shorter life expectancy among males than females. Thus, in contrast to common narrative, if life expectancy and general population proportions are the most important reference points in determining appropriate research representation, women are “overrepresented” in NIH-funded research trials.
The data in the graph were extracted from reports published by the NIH’s Office of Research on Women’s Health. An archive of these reports is available here at The Nuzzo Letter. This archive also contains a link to Ed Bartlett’s paper from 2001, which also debunks the claim that women have been historically excluded from medical research.
Related Content at The Nuzzo Letter
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