About the Project
The Sex, Gender and Covid-19 Project is a partnership of Global Health 50/50, the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), and the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). The project is building the world’s largest database of sex-disaggregated data on COVID-19, investigating the roles sex and gender are playing in the outbreak, building the evidence base of whether countries are considering gender and equity in their COVID-19 health policies, and advocating for effective gender-responsive approaches to pandemic.
Understanding and addressing the impacts of both sex and gender on health outcomes is critical to building equitable, sustainable and healthy societies. The COVID-19 pandemic is no different. From the first reports of the novel coronavirus, there has been consistent evidence of its gendered impact. In its early investigations, however, Global Health 50/50 found that only a handful of countries were reporting sex-disaggregated data on COVID-19, and that no initiative had taken responsibility for consolidating the data that were available. In response, Global Health 50/50 established the COVID-19 Data Tracker, which compiles national data, disaggregated by sex and age.
More recently, the Project has launched the Sex, Gender and COVID-19 Health Policy Portal which provides the most comprehensive analysis of the inclusion of gender, equity and human rights into national COVID-19 health policies globally, as well as offering an open-access health policy repository.
Over the course of the project, Global Health 50/50, ICRW and APHRC will be working together to expand the Data Tracker, track national policy responses and urge national and sub-national health programmes and global health institutions to report sex-disaggregated data and apply intersectional gender analysis to inform COVID-19 responses.
The project is supported with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.