BRIEF TO THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL AFFAIRS, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Naming Brain Health as an Explicit Priority in the National Framework for Women's Health Created by Bill S-243.
About Women's Brain Health Initiative
WBHI is a Canadian charitable foundation, founded in 2012. Our mandate is twofold: to fund sex- and gender-specific brain-aging research that better meets the unique needs of women, and to deliver evidence-informed preventative health education that helps women, caregivers, and families lower their risk before disease takes hold. Our research work includes the world's first research chair dedicated to women's brain health and aging, the Joyce and Wilfred Posluns Chair in Women's Brain Health and Aging, held by Dr. Gillian Einstein at the University of Toronto and co-funded with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), which has produced more than 50 peer-reviewed publications since 2017[1]; the Sex and Gender cross-cutting theme of the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging, which WBHI initiated and funds; and, together with Brain Canada, six sex- and gender-specific research grants focused on aging, neurodegeneration, and stroke[2].
Our education work includes Mind Over Matter®, published twice annually and co-funded by Brain Canada for its last 20 editions, featuring evidence-based articles on prolonging cognitive vitality that highlight sex- and gender-differences, which reached a combined 281,000 English- and French-language readers across its two 2025 editions[3], the Six Pillars of Brain Health, and the BrainFit® habit-tracking app, funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada and downloaded more than 50,000 times since launch[4]. This brief draws on both bodies of work.
Executive Summary
Women's Brain Health Initiative (WBHI) supports Bill S-243. The bill would require the Minister of Health to develop, in consultation with stakeholders, a national framework for women's health covering research, training, prevention, innovation, and access to care. This brief recommends that the framework name brain health (dementia, stroke, migraine, and mental health), explicitly as a priority area for research, funding, and clinical guidance. Brain health is one of the most sex-differentiated and least funded areas of women's health in Canada, and without an explicit mandate it risks being folded into general or reproductive health language and deprioritized, as has happened with women's health research funding more broadly.
Summary of Recommendations
1. Name brain health (dementia, stroke, migraine, and mental health) explicitly as a priority area within the framework's research and funding mandate.
2. Direct CIHR and other federal funders to set measurable targets for sex- and gender-specific brain research as part of the framework's implementation.
3. Ensure diagnostic and clinical guidelines developed under the framework account for known sex differences, such as cognitive test cutoff scores, not just funding allocations.
4. Link the framework explicitly to Canada's Brain Economy agenda so women's brain health is recognized as both a health and an economic priority.
Our Position on Bill S-243
WBHI supports Bill S-243 in principle. Canadian women spend 24% more time than men in poor health, and Canada is the only G7 country without a current national women's health strategy; the last one dates to 1999.[5] We support the bill's core structure, a framework embedded in law, with a requirement that the Minister of Health report on priorities and implement a strategy within one year of the act coming into force. Our recommendation is an addition, not an amendment to the bill's text: that brain health be named explicitly when the framework itself is developed, for the reasons set out below.
The Evidence: Why Brain Health Must Be Named Explicitly
Brain health is one of the most sex-differentiated areas in medicine, and, within women's health, one of the least funded. The following evidence illustrates the scope of the gap.
Alzheimer's disease and dementia
About two-thirds of Canadians living with Alzheimer's disease are women[6]. Genetic risk compounds this: a meta-analysis of nearly 58,000 participants found that the APOE e4 gene, the strongest known genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's, confers a significantly higher risk in women than men between the ages of 65 and 75, the decade immediately following menopause for most women[7].
Menopause and surgical menopause
A systematic review and meta-analysis of roughly 18,900 women found that surgical menopause, the removal of both ovaries, at or before age 45 was associated with a 70% increased risk of dementia relative to natural menopause[8]. WBHI-funded research through the Posluns Chair has independently linked surgical menopause to increased risk of subjective cognitive decline and significantly elevated odds of Alzheimer's disease, alongside measurable decreases in grey matter volume in brain regions sensitive to estradiol[9]. Estrogen's protective role in brain aging remains understudied relative to its clinical significance.
Diagnosis and testing bias
Women have a lifelong advantage in verbal memory, one of the domains used to diagnose Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment. Research shows this advantage can mask underlying pathology, so that women are diagnosed later, when disease is more advanced, than men with equivalent pathology. Researchers have recommended sex-specific cutoff scores on standard cognitive tests to correct for this[10].
Stroke
Women account for approximately 59% of stroke deaths in Canada, compared with 41% for men, and are roughly twice as likely as men to require long-term care after a stroke[11].
Migraine
Migraine affects women at roughly twice the global prevalence rate it affects men (20.7% versus 9.7%), and women with migraine carry substantially more comorbidities, including anxiety and depression, than men with migraine[12]. A Canada-wide cross-sectional study of migraine found a study population that was 60% women. In Canada, approximately 2.7 million people live with migraine, women at up to three times the rate of men, and the condition costs the Canadian economy an estimated $14.6 billion annually in lost productivity, missed workdays, and early workforce departure[13].
Mental health
Canadian women are diagnosed with major depressive disorder at nearly twice the rate of men (11% versus 6%) and report anxiety disorder symptoms at a similarly elevated rate (14% versus 8%)[14]. The postpartum period carries its own distinct risk: approximately 1 in 6 new mothers in Canada experience symptoms of a perinatal mood or anxiety disorder[15], a window with no equivalent in men's health that current systems are not consistently equipped to catch. WBHI itself, together with Brain Canada, currently funds three active research projects examining how depression, chronic stress, and hormonal transitions intersect with long-term cognitive risk[16].
Research funding
None of this is reflected in how Canada funds research. CIHR funding directed to women's health research has remained at 7% of its total budget for 15 years, and, within that, only 0.09% has gone specifically toward understanding female-specific contributions to dementia[17]. As Deloitte Canada's Zahra Jivan has observed, women's health research funding has concentrated on “bikini medicine,” leaving brain health, alongside autoimmune disease, oncology, and cardiology, significantly understudied[18]. A framework for women's health that does not name brain health explicitly risks repeating this pattern.
International Precedent: Peer Countries Already Treat Brain Health as a Priority
Canada would not be alone in doing this. The UK's Women's Health Strategy for England already commits to improving women's participation in dementia research and to raising awareness of dementia risk factors specific to women, in explicit recognition that women over 60 are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's disease as they are to develop breast cancer over the rest of their lifetime[19]. Naming brain health in Canada's own framework would bring Canada in line with, rather than behind, a peer G7 health system, closing a gap the 1999 Canadian strategy never anticipated.
Federal Precedent: Government of Canada Investment Already Underway
This is not a hypothetical ask, and it would not require new federal machinery to act on it. Earlier this year, the Government of Canada, through Health Canada and the Canada Brain Research Fund, partnered directly with WBHI and Brain Canada to launch the Accelerator Grants: Migraine Research program, catalyzing sex- and gender-informed research into a condition that affects women at up to three times the rate of men[20]. Announcing the program, the Minister of Health, the Honourable Marjorie Michel, said the investment reflects the government's “commitment to advancing brain health, closing longstanding health inequities in research and care, and ensuring women receive the evidence-based solutions they need to live healthier, fuller lives”[21]. Naming brain health explicitly in the Bill S-243 framework would formalize and extend a priority the federal government, and WBHI, have already begun acting on.
The Economic Case: Brain Capital and the Brain Economy
There is also an economic argument, and it has gained significant momentum in the past year. Brain capital, the combination of a population's brain health and brain skills, is increasingly recognized as a driver of national competitiveness. In January 2026, economists and neuroscientists gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos to launch the Global Brain Capital Index, a tool that scores countries on brain health and brain skills the way we might score infrastructure or education[22]. The McKinsey Health Institute has estimated that prioritizing brain health globally could unlock as much as US$26 trillion in economic opportunity[23]. Canada has staked its own claim to this agenda through the G7 Brain Economy Summit and the Canada Brain Economy Declaration.
Women's brain health is not a side note to this agenda; it is central to it. The 2024 Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention, and care found that nearly half of all dementia cases trace back to modifiable risk factors, and that most of that damage accumulates in midlife, decades before any diagnosis[24]. Adhering to healthy lifestyle habits across those risk factors can lower the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease by up to 60%[25], which is why prevention-focused education is core infrastructure, not a soft add-on. WBHI's own analysis of the Commission's findings is that more than half of those modifiable risk factors disproportionately affect women, from unequal caregiving loads, nearly two-thirds of family caregivers in Canada are women[26], to the physiology of menopause, making midlife not just a risk window but an inequity window[27].
Undertreated brain conditions are a major reason women spend up to nine more years than men in poor health, time that comes directly out of their participation in education and the workforce, and Canada's own opportunity from closing the broader women's health gap is valued at $37 billion a year by 2040[28]. Naming brain health in the framework lets Canada advance its women's health and brain economy goals through the same piece of legislation, rather than treating them as separate files, and helps ensure that as the brain economy takes shape, women are not once again the ones left to catch up.
Recommendations
We recommend that the Committee's report on Bill S-243 encourage the Minister of Health, in developing the national framework, to:
1. Name brain health (dementia, stroke, migraine, and mental health) explicitly as a priority area within the framework's research and funding mandate, rather than leaving it folded into general or reproductive health language.
2. Direct CIHR and other federal funders to set measurable targets for sex- and gender-specific brain research as part of the framework's implementation.
3. Ensure diagnostic and clinical guidelines developed under the framework account for known sex differences, such as cognitive test cutoff scores, not just funding allocations.
4. Link the framework explicitly to Canada's Brain Economy agenda so women's brain health is recognized as both a health and an economic priority.
Conclusion
Bill S-243 is an opportunity to correct fifteen years of stagnant funding and a strategy that has not been updated since 1999. Brain health, an area where sex differences are well documented and Canadian research is significantly underfunded, should not be left to chance within that framework. WBHI would welcome the opportunity to provide further evidence or testimony to the Committee as its study of Bill S-243 continues.
Respectfully submitted,
Lynn Posluns
President and CEO, Women's Brain Health Initiative
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For information purposes only and not submitted as part of the official evidence: the recent Mind Over Matter® feature, “Closing the Women's Health Gap in Canada,” is available on request. Its edition was distributed in English and French to more than 130,000 households across Canada and is also available online and may be useful to the Committee for public communication about this study.
[1]Women's Brain Health Initiative. 2025 Impact Report.[2]Women's Brain Health Initiative. The BrainFit App: The Case for Support for Versions 2.0 and Beyond. White paper, June 2025.[3]Women's Brain Health Initiative. 2025 Impact Report.[4]Women's Brain Health Initiative. 2025 Impact Report.[5]McKinsey Health Institute. “Closing the Women's Health Gap: Canada's $37 Billion Opportunity.” October 22, 2025.[6]Public Health Agency of Canada; Alzheimer Society of Canada. Dementia surveillance data on the sex distribution of Alzheimer's disease in Canada.[7]Neu, S.C., et al. “Apolipoprotein E Genotype and Sex Risk Factors for Alzheimer Disease: A Meta-analysis.” JAMA Neurology 74, no. 10 (2017): 1178–1189.[8]Georgakis, M.K., Beskou-Kontou, T., Theodoridis, I., Skalkidou, A., and Petridou, E.T. “Surgical Menopause in Association with Cognitive Function and Risk of Dementia: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.” Psychoneuroendocrinology 106 (2019): 149–162.[9]Women's Brain Health Initiative. 2025 Impact Report.[10]Sundermann, E.E., et al. “Does the Female Advantage in Verbal Memory Contribute to Underestimating Alzheimer's Disease Pathology in Women versus Men?” Journal of Alzheimer's Disease 56, no. 3 (2017): 947–957.[11]Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. 2018 Stroke Report.[12]Sex and gender differences in migraine: narrative review literature, including a Canada-wide cross-sectional study on migraine and health-related quality of life.[13]Women's Brain Health Initiative and Brain Canada. “Headway on Headaches: Major Investment Fuels Migraine Research for Women.” News release, 2026.[14]Canadian Mental Health Association. The State of Mental Health in Canada: Gender Factsheet. 2024.[15]Public Health Agency of Canada. Perinatal mood and anxiety disorder surveillance data.[16]Women's Brain Health Initiative. 2025 Impact Report.[17]Galea, L.A.M., et al. Study on CIHR funding allocation for women's health and dementia research. Biology of Sex Differences, October 2025.[18]Deloitte and IWK Foundation. “The Case for Advancing Women's Health in Canada.” November 13, 2025.[19]Alzheimer's Research UK. “First Women's Health Strategy for England Sets Welcomed Ambition for Dementia.”[20]Women's Brain Health Initiative and Brain Canada. “Headway on Headaches: Major Investment Fuels Migraine Research for Women.” News release, 2026.[21]Women's Brain Health Initiative and Brain Canada. “Headway on Headaches: Major Investment Fuels Migraine Research for Women.” News release, 2026.[22]Global Brain Capital Index, launched at the World Economic Forum, Davos, January 2026.[23]McKinsey Health Institute and World Economic Forum. “The Human Advantage: Stronger Brains in the Age of AI.” 2026.[24]Livingston, G., et al. “Dementia Prevention, Intervention, and Care: 2024 Report of the Lancet Commission.” The Lancet, 2024.[25]National Institutes of Health. “Combination of Healthy Lifestyle Traits May Substantially Reduce Alzheimer's.” 2020.[26]Women's Brain Health Initiative. Public communications, womensbrainhealth.org.[27]Posluns, L. “Editor's Letter.” Mind Over Matter®, Volume 23 (forthcoming).[28]McKinsey Health Institute. “Closing the Women's Health Gap: Canada's $37 Billion Opportunity.” October 22, 2025.