Gender medicine explores how sex (biological differences) and gender (sociocultural factors) influence health, disease development, and responses to treatment.
Adopting a transversal approach across all areas of medicine, including immunology and infectious diseases, it examines how differences in genetics, hormones, lifestyle, and environmental exposures affect disease prevalence, risk factors, clinical presentation, and therapeutic outcomes, with the goal of improving diagnosis, management, prevention, and health equity.
This field has emerged from the recognition that much biomedical and clinical research over the past decades has been conducted predominantly on single-sex populations, limiting the applicability of results.
The course addresses:
- The integration of sex- and gender-based differences into medical practice;
- Gender-specific lifestyle factors and cancer risk;
- Sex-related differences in immune responses and autoimmunity;
- Gender differences in prevalence, clinical outcomes, and treatment efficacy of common infectious diseases;
- Related bioethical issues and strategies to address them.
Students will gain an understanding of the value of a gender-specific approach to disease management and its role in improving equity and healthcare resource utilization.
