Dr Sharon Phares Speaks on How Value Assessments Can Improve Care Imbalances for Women

Sharon Phares, PhD, MPH, chief scientific officer of the National Pharmaceutical Council, detailed how value assessments can address health care imbalances for women, marking Women's Health Month.

Transcript

How do value assessments currently address imbalances in health care for women and what still needs to be improved?

Phares: So, currently, there are attempts to address imbalances but they still exist. For instance, if you think back to when migraine medications were being assessed, a lot of the issues that really impact what makes those medications important to women in particular, who are the most predominant group that suffers from migraine, we're not considered. So, those are things like their ability to function and to care for their families. What they're trying to do in HTA [health technology assessment] now is to be more inclusive of those; to look at things like caregiver burden, again, something that women are more likely to be doing than men; and then quality of life issues around your ability to do normal activities, like care for children, go to work, etc.