Following on from the first podcast devoted to biased diagnoses in people of colour, this second series looks at biased diagnoses in women or people assigned female at birth (AFAB). The statistics indicate that areas of medicine such as pain, emergencies, chronic diseases and neurodivergence are all biased towards men in their diagnosis and treatment. In addition, statistics show that women and AFAB people are undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, and often live longer in poor health and pain. Very well constructed with interviews and solid facts, this podcast is very interesting. But in this day and age, this information is appalling and sad.
“What makes things complicated here is that for decades, the set of criteria that formed the baseline of how we recognise and understand neurodivergence and, ultimately, how we diagnose it was based on the cis-male experience.
– So autism and ADHD and dyspraxia, we’re told three, four, five, six, seven times as many boys as girls. Because we were looking through a male lens. And only relatively recently did we even consider what does ADHD and autism actually look like in females. So a lot of the diagnostic approaches, identification, awareness, knowledge was very much about how boys do stuff, and that’s why we were picking up boys and the research was around boys stuff too. So that was important because we weren’t looking for girls.
This is Dr Amanda Kirby.
– I am a medical doctor, worked in the field of neurodiversity for 30 plus years, come from a neurdivergent family, am neurodivergent. When I was growing up and in school, I certainly didn’t think of myself at all aspossibly of having ADHD, nor did I think about it in my 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s. And only after working in the field for a very long time, and I turned around to everybody and I went “Do you think I’ve got ADHD ?”. And they all went “Of course you have”.
Amanda’s experience is something that has been happening to many women. According to the ADHD foundation, the majority of people diagnosed under the age of 18 are male. For everyone else, diagnosis isn’t happening until well into adulthood, if at all.”
Six episodes of approximately 45 minutes each
Episode 1. Emergency
Episode 2. Reproductive Care
Episode 3. Pain
Episode 4. Pregnancy
Episode 5. Chronic
Episode 6. Neurodivergence