Gender biases in cardiovascular research

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Cover illustration for the British Medical Journal on the topic under-representation of women in cardiovascular research.

An excerpt of the featured article

First roughs

The concepts I presented to the team focused on various aspects highlighted in the paper.

Rough N#1 highlighted selection biases in research by showing multiple test tubes containing women and non-binary people. A gloved hand picking up the only test tube containing a man.

Rough N#2 showed a male face silhouette with light streaming through it; a woman standing in this frame has her hand on her heart and an EKG reading is beaming through it. This concept aimed to capture the reading of data through a male lens.

Rough N#3 captured treatment for cardiovascular issues being overwhelmingly created for male data by showing a mountain of pills with a man standing on top of it, while a group of women stand at the bottom.

We ended up tweaking concept one to put more focus on the cardiovascular aspect of the piece and show a positive angle, rather than focusing on the negativity of male research biases.