Women’s Health Research Wales

FTWW is proud to play an important role in co-leading patient and public involvement and engagement at Wales’ first women’s health research centre.

Women’s Health Research Wales (WHRW) is an all-Wales research centre dedicated to women’s health, funded by Health and Care Research Wales (HCRW) and under the direction of Professor Jacky Boivin at Cardiff University.

It is currently funded for 5 years, from 2025.

What is FTWW’s role?

FTWW will be playing an important role in the work of the centre as ‘Third Sector Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement’ co-leads. We will be helping to ensure that projects involve charities and groups, and that the voices of women themselves are heard in how the centre is run and the activities it undertakes.

About WHRW

WHRW forms part of the Welsh Government’s commitment to women’s health, something which FTWW has helped to secure through our patient advocacy and work with other organisations in the third sector Women’s Health Wales Coalition.

The 10-year NHS Wales Women’s Health Plan, published at the end of 2024, highlights the importance of research in helping to address a widespread lack of understanding of health issues which uniquely, disproportionately, or differently affect women, girls, and people registered female at birth.

WHRW aims to:

Develop research projects which look at health-related issues across women’s lives and their wider impacts to improve experiences and wellbeing
Develop partnerships between academics and industry to help create treatments and tools which work better for women
Work collaboratively with third sector, NHS, and policy-makers, so that research projects reflect women’s needs and can be implemented in practice
Help health and social care providers better understand and consider sex and gender in the services they develop
Ensure more people better understand women’s health and how to research it

WHRW’s research will focus on four themes or areas:

How health can be maintained and improved at different stages of life
Early onset and life-long conditions
Stigmatised and rare conditions
Under-served women’s groups and how they can be disadvantaged when it comes to the development and treatment of diseases and access to healthcare

To find out more, visit the WHRW website where you’ll also be able to find opportunities to get involved in its various projects and activities.

WHRW news