Gayet-Ageron A, Clair C, Schwarz J, Heidari S, Bovet E, Bize R, Stute P, Nadal D, Magnin A, Kalberer N, Michaud P-A.
Swiss Medical Weekly – December 9, 2024
Research ethics committees play a critical role in ensuring compliance with Swiss law on research involving human subjects, which prohibits discrimination and mandates the fair inclusion of participants. Recent amendments to Swiss regulations emphasise the importance of including diverse groups representative of the target population in terms of sex and age, with any exclusions requiring clear justification. Globally, representativeness and diversity in research remain challenges, despite guidelines like the SAGER guidelines, which aim to embed sex and gender considerations into research design and reporting. In response, swissethics established a working group in 2023 to develop the “SAGER-swissethics recommendations,” promoting the integration of these dimensions in Swiss health research. This paper highlights the ethical and scientific importance of addressing sex and gender in research.