The theme of World Kidney Day 2018 is 'kidneys and women's health: include, value, empower'.To mark this event, Nature Reviews Nephrology asked four leading researchers to discuss key considerations related to women's kidney health, including specific risk factors, as well as the main challenges and barriers to care for women with kidney disease and how these might be overcome. They also discuss policies and systems that could be implemented to improve the kidney health of women and their offspring and the areas of research that are needed to improve the outcomes of kidney disease in women.
Q. Why is the topic of "kidneys and women's health" particularly important?Gloria E. Ashuntantang. Acute kidney injury (AKI) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) are growing public health problems that are associated with adverse clinical and psychosocial outcomes 1 . Globally, CKD is more prevalent in women (~272 million) than in men (~226 million) 2 , and sex differences exist in all aspects of kidney health, from epidemiology, pathogenesis and care to outcomes. In addition to risk factors in common with men, such as diabetes mellitus and hypertension, the specific biology of women exposes them to unique risk factors for AKI and CKD.Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), HIV infection and urinary tract infections (UTIs) are known risk