NationalWorld Trends Writer Sarah McCann speaks to Clue CEO Audrey Tsang about the importance of tracking your menstrual cycle for Endometriosis awareness month.
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00:00 I think it's always surprising when you see a number as big as actually 74% of survey respondents said this.
00:08 It's not surprising to the extent that conversations that we've had with our user community in the past, especially with those managing conditions like endometriosis,
00:23 they've often said this, you know, often we hear quotes like, "Oh, you are your best doctor," because people don't feel supported, let's say.
00:35 Or we might hear, "I just want to be taken seriously," or "I just want my pain taken seriously."
00:43 This wasn't surprising because we had been looking at our user community's experience with pain, and especially with pain related to their cycle health and their menstrual and reproductive health.
00:58 And we knew that there was something there. I think it was just when we ended up surveying users that had reported confirmed diagnosis of endometriosis
01:08 that we could really see for this particular condition, you know, how shocking that number really is.
01:15 Yeah, it was quite shocking to read some of the statistics.
01:19 And especially, I mean, to bring it to the UK, we've had some quite shocking news regarding the delay for a diagnosis of endometriosis.
01:27 So it's actually went up now, you know, to eight years, 10 months.
01:31 So with Clue, obviously you have users around the world. Have you noticed from the survey, were there any regional differences?
01:40 I wouldn't say, we didn't look specifically at that yet.
01:46 But I'd say as a whole, you know, in the UK, you mentioned that there was a year increase.
01:52 And I think this was post COVID, right, that the time to diagnosis has increased by a year for endometriosis.
02:00 Well, I mean, in our survey, we found that, let's say 46% of respondents, for them, it took over five years to get a diagnosis.
02:12 So I would just, I mean, I think if anything, this reveals that the problem is still there, that there is still delay in diagnosis and under diagnosis of these conditions.
02:24 Yeah, definitely. And also what I find is really interesting was that around 30% found that using Clue had been helpful in accessing their diagnosis.
02:35 So how important is it to track your menstrual cycle or to track your cycle?
02:42 Well, I mean, I look at that 30% number and some say like, oh, that's just 30%.
02:48 That's a big number. Yeah.
02:50 A big number. And I also think it's particularly interesting when you look at the differences across younger respondents and older respondents.
03:01 So older respond. So overall, it's about a third. But when you look just actually at younger respondents, that increases to 40% of those under 25 that found tracking include useful in helping them get that get a diagnosis.
03:15 diagnosis.