Women are two-thirds of the world’s blind population, and there is no clear evidence for the cause of this alarming statistic. Dr. Janine Austin Clayton’s keynote address, "It’s About Quality Construction—Advancing a Foundational Framework for Rigorous Research Relevant to the Health of Women," at AER19 began with this disturbing fact as she described her path from being an ophthalmologist to the Director for NIH’s Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH). As she discussed this, and other startling statistics regarding women’s health in the United States, it caused me to wonder why gender and sex are not routinely considered in study design. How are studies ensuring that women (and sex as a biological variable) are integrated into the design of animal and human research studies so that knowledge and treatments gained from these studies can be generalizable and effective for both men and women? Read more