Growing together: reflections on Canada’s first interdisciplinary women’s health research training program

Historically, health research has prioritized biomedical studies of male bodies and excluded considerations of gender, leading to significant gaps in advancing health for women and gender-diverse people. This knowledge gap has real-life implications for women and gender-diverse people’s experience within the healthcare system. There are many system-level barriers to conducting women’s health research, including underfunding and the siloing of researchers. These challenges extend across women’s academic careers. There is an urgent need to explore innovative and interdisciplinary ways to support the next generation of women researchers and address gender inequities in healthcare. This collaborative autoethnography presents reflections from the first cohort of the GROWW national training program – the first interdisciplinary research training program on girls’ and women’s health in Canada. Using thematic analysis of written reflective pieces and descriptive statistical analysis of cross-sectional survey data from students and early career researchers engaged in GROWW, four key themes are highlighted to explore the cohort’s experiences including: 1) supporting interdisciplinary networking and research, 2) fostering authentic connections, collaboration and relationship-building, 3) challenging patriarchy in the academy, and 4) identifying lessons learned. Women’s health research must now contend with the fast-evolving political climate and ideological shifts that are altering how populations view and value gender-equity initiatives and research. Expanding interdisciplinary research training programs may support the skill development necessary for scholars and practitioners to succeed. In response to a troubling sociopolitical trend of increased suppression of research on sex and gender, now more than ever, there is a critical need to support both women’s health research and women researchers in their pursuit of knowledge.