But much sex-disaggregated Covid-19 data remains missing for many countries
Kenya’s African Population and Health Research Center and partners have launched an open access data hub focusing on sex and gender in the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The APHRC, the United Kingdom-based advocacy group Global Health 50/50 and the Washington-based International Center for Research on Women launched the dashboard on 10 September.
The dashboard tracks global sex-disaggregated Covid-19 data including cases, deaths, ICU admissions, hospitalisations, and deaths from confirmed cases.
The organisers say that the data reveals “stark gender differences in Covid-19 health outcomes”. The latest global data shows that 1.8 times more men were admitted to ICU than women, and that 1.4 times more men than women have died from Covid-19.
The dashboard will aim to help policymakers around the world respond to Covid-19 with evidence-based plans that are effective and adaptable. But so far the data is patchy: only a handful of the 174 nations that the dashboard tracks supply testing, health worker cases, ICU admissions, and hospitalisations by sex. Death data by sex is available in 82 countries, and confirmed cases by sex in 119.
“The data is often irregular, hard to find or simply non-existent,” said Sarah Hawkes of Global Health 50/50, in a statement.
The dashboard aims to highlight these gaps to encourage governments to increase the global data pool. “Robust sex-disaggregated data are needed, not just for global, but for local action,” said Catherine Kyobutungi, the APHRC executive director.