Women’s Mental Health Has Been Ignored for Too Long.
Treatments based on men. Tested on men, then, prescribed to women. For decades, that was the reality for women seeking mental health care—far too little research reflected their needs, and even less treatment was built around them. CAMH is forging a better path for women’s mental health care, and we need your voice in this movement.
Women Deserve Better Care
- Women in Canada spend nearly a quarter (24%) more of their lives in poor overall health and disability than men.7
- Women were excluded from most mental health research until 1997.8 Today, women still show greater adverse side effects to new medications than men and are told that their symptoms are “atypical.”
- Women are diagnosed an average of 2 years later than men across 1,400+ conditions.9
- Postpartum depression wasn’t recognized as its own condition until 1994.10
- Depression and anxiety spike during hormonal transitions like puberty, pregnancy, postpartum, and perimenopause—yet research on why remains dangerously limited.12
These aren’t just statistics.
This could be you. Your mother. Your sister. Your friend.
Women are suffering right now, and their distress and symptoms are still being dismissed.
But together, we can change the future of women’s mental health care.
I'm ready to transform mental health care to include, respect, and prioritize women.
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Here’s What CAMH is Doing About It
Groundbreaking Research
As Canada’s leading mental health research hospital, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) conducts women-centred studies on maternal mental health, hormone related conditions, trauma, perimenopause and diagnosis accuracy—our dedicated staff are committed to closing gaps that have been ignored for decades.
Better Treatment
We transform care through innovations like BluesAway™. Invented, researched, developed and commercialized at CAMH, it is the first-ever clinically validated natural supplement to prevent postpartum blues. When research finally prioritizes women, life-changing solutions follow.
Advocacy & Awareness
We influence policy and are building a movement of people who refuse to accept dismissal, delays and discrimination in mental health care.
7 McKinsey Health Institute (2024). "Closing the women's health gap: Canada's $37 billion opportunity"
8 Health Canada, Therapeutic Products Directorate Guidelines 1997; Tri-Council Policy Statement, Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans 1998. [TCPS] as referenced in this research.
9 CAMH womenmind, this research study.
12 medRxiv research study (search for the paragraph that starts with: “However, given that 20% of the population will experience depression or anxiety across their lifespan only 0.37% of funded grants were on female-specific studies in anxiety and depression, suggesting a large gap in needed research.”); Also on CAMH womenmind.
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💡 Make an Impact
Your voice helps build the momentum and pressure needed to change systems that have failed women for generations.
Why We Need You Now
Every day that passes, women face disparities in mental health care, including being:
- diagnosed years later than men
- dismissed during postpartum depression
- told perimenopausal anxiety is “just a normal part of aging”
- left without answers because research still excludes their experiences
But CAMH researchers are closing these gender gaps, one study, one discovery, one system change at a time.
Women have waited long enough.
Refuse the status quo and demand better today.