I'm done with the Zoe COVID study

[SchoolNightWine]

I've been part of the Zoe COVID study since it started - felt like I was 'doing my bit'
Today I got this email about a menopause study...
I am disheartened, angry and furious that I've wasted time on them (while going through so many menopausal symptoms) when according to them anyone who identifies as female could take part in the menopause survey.
I've emailed to let them know my disgust and deleted the app, but wanted their views to be known wider so hope it's ok to share it here.

I unsubscribed and they asked for a reason so I damn well told them.

It's great that they actually mentioned women in the follow-up email. Every little step is worth celebrating.

It's an invitation to apply.

Not a confirmation of acceptance.

No-one needed to get in touch. Because the first notification was the starting point, not the study parameters.

Agree, this is pointless without defining who "us" refers to. All people? All adults? All adults worldwide? All women? (in which case I hope I'm the 50% who dont!) All women in the UK? All women over 40? Everyone whose name begins with L? Everyone with blue eyes? All of us who are able to curl their tongue? Everyone in the email distribution list? Who the fuck knows!

Plus, even if you do give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they mean 50% of humans, I'm not sure this is correct, as, given the age of average menopause (about 50?) sadly enough women die before then (particularly in less developed countries) I would suggest the figure is actually somewhere in the 40%.

But another bit of the NHS, the 111 online app triage service had these words: what was your sex at birth? Straightforward, no woo options. "If you feel uncomfortable, or don't see an option that reflects you, please ring us".

I can't tell you how delighted I am

Ffs to draw robust conclusions you first need quality data. They are designing the data collection and so could easily specify these things correctly - a data analysts dream! Instead they are fucking it up and in years to come it will be in the huge list of study results*
*data specified for gender not sex, symptom/feature based questionnaire used instead to determine sex flawed eg women on mirena, pill, etc who ticked I do not have periods excluded from all follow up questions… etc.

as for 50% of people…

So nice to see common sense wording used here. Thanks for sharing that.

I never felt them same about them after I sent a long feedback about how they didn’t ask about sex properly, covid is a disease that affects/kills men and women in different ways, and they were obscuring the stats, that their questions assumed a male default (asked nothing about any female biological processes/life stage/medications) just really disappointing. There was no response and their weekly editorial content never addressed it. But I wanted to help so I carried on giving data, which I regret a bit now.

I never signed up. I can't remember the wording but I do know it was a question about gender/identity instead of sex that stopped me - I deleted it.