Did you know that most medicine research is done on weird people?
Now you think “WEIRD people” sounds like a group you would find at a very strange party, but acutally it is an acronym, that stands for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. The term was popularized by psychologists Joseph Henrich, Steven Heine, and Ara Norenzayan in a 2010 paper called “The weirdest people in the world?”. Their point was that a lot of research about human behavior relied on participants from a very narrow slice of the world: people in Western, industrialized societies, often university students. And then Researchers then sometimes talked as if those findings described humanity in general, but it isn't. The people included in a study do not always reflect everyone who will eventually use the treatment.
That matters because age, sex, body size, other health conditions, genetics, diet, and environment can affect how a drug is absorbed, how well it works, and which side effects it causes. A trial cannot answer every question about every group, especially when the group was barely represented in the first place.
There is evidence of gaps. A review of recent clinical-trial publications found that some demographic groups remain underrepresented.
For example Researchers may exclude people with other illnesses, people taking several medicines, older adults, pregnant people, or patients whose condition is more severe. Sometimes those exclusions help make an early study safer or easier to interpret. But if the rules keep out too many of the people who will need the drug, the results become harder to apply to everyday care.
There are also practical barriers: trial sites may be far away, visits can take time, and participation may mean missing work or arranging childcare. So a study can end up reflecting who could conveniently join it, rather than the full population living with the condition.
So be aware that there is a gap on “this worked for the people we studied” to “this will work the same way for everyone.” And that there is social inequality when it comes to drug research for a huge portion of the world.