Research from the USA, highlighting the underfunding of long COVID and ME/CFS, illnesses which often co-occur and “disproportionately impact females whose concerns are often marginalised” has been published in Nature journal Communications Medicine.
The study team considered long COVID alongside several other health conditions and illnesses, including ME/CFS, Alzheimer’s disease, and traumatic brain injury, and used a measurement known as years lived with disability (YLD) to assess their impact on quality of life, reflecting the number of years individuals live with a disability or disease. The researchers then looked at the proportion of research funding each condition or illness had received from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and how this related to YLDs, and whether an illness was more common in females than males.
Unsurprisingly, results indicated that “ME/CFS is the most under-funded condition, receiving <1% of its YLD proportionate funding.” Additionally findings showed that of the 12 health conditions and illnesses which received below average funding from NIH, 7 (58%) were more common in females, and none were most common in males. In fact, the research team stated that “conditions affecting mostly men receive 5.2 times more funding/YLD than those affecting mostly women”.
The researchers also highlighted that YLDs explained very little of the funding, only 6.5%, allocated to research by NIH, and concluded that “Long COVID highlights opportunities for NIH research funding to better align with disability burden and address sex-based disparities.”
The delays in ME/CFS research due to systemic prejudice against women, known as ‘medical misogyny’, in healthcare that leads to their concerns being dismissed or minimised, are well documented, and you can read more about these issues on the ME Research UK website, including in the following articles:
- International Women’s Day 2026
- 70th Anniversary of Royal Free outbreak – 13th July 1955
- International Men’s Day 2023 – ME/CFS in men
- Burden of disease in ME/CFS
- Economic Burden of ME/CFS
- Parliamentary Answers Confirm no delivery for ME/CFS research
- Our response to the DHSC interim delivery plan on ME/CFS
- My full reality: the interim delivery plan on ME/CFS – Our response part 1
- My full reality: the interim delivery plan on ME/CFS – Our response part 2
