Women's Health Opportunities Increase at HSPH


Opportunities to learn about women's health have always been available at HSPH. Until recently, however, finding them could be a bit of a challenge: students had to read the course catalog thoroughly and seek advice from faculty members to discover what classes were offered through which department. Now, a group of faculty and students have made readily available a listing of women's health options at the school, and they plan to do a lot more in the futureincluding the proposed introduction of a new course focusing on gender and health for 1998-99.

The Women and Health Working Group was created by a number of faculty who all had experiences similar to those of Marlene Goldman, associate professor of epidemiology: "Each year, students from my course in reproductive epidemiology would come to my office and tell me that they were interested in learning more about women's health issues and ask me what other opportunities there were at the school. I'd refer them to Jane Gardner's course, 'Women, Health, and Development,' in the Department of Maternal and Child Health, and to a number of courses offered in the Department of Population and International Health. But it was frustrating for me, and disappointing to them, that there was no 'official' agenda or program, that there was no possibility of concentrating in women's health, not even any place or person to serve as a clearinghouse for research and scholarship in this area at our school."

Gardner, a senior lecturer in the Department of Maternal and Child Health, decided that the situation would be improved if the faculty who were doing research or teaching courses in areas of women's health had occasion to meet and talk with each other about their work. She took the initiative to call together all of the faculty that she knew of who were working in this area, and asked each of those people to contact others. With interested studentsespecially members of Women in Public Healthalso invited, the group held its first meeting in September, 1996.

"There were about ten of us at that first meeting," said Gardner. "We spent most of the time telling each other about our own research and teaching activities." Everyone agreed that forming a group was helpful in giving the members a more comprehensive understanding of women's health activities at the school. They were able to put together a list of fourteen courses, offered through five departments at the school, which fell under the rubric of "women and health."

Since then, the group has continued to meet once a month to lay the groundwork and begin building a framework for more formal study of gender and health at the school. They are particularly interested in fostering research and training that recognizes the influence of diversity and inequality on the health of women. What the finished structure will look like depends upon a number of variables, including faculty and student interest, funding, and administrative support, but what is certain are the advances made thus far: the group has printed a pamphlet listing the fourteen HSPH courses recommended by the group and distributed the pamphlet to all of this year's incoming students, and the availability of a recommended curriculum has been featured in both the Official Register and on the school's website.

Another step is the identification of women and health as a substantive area in the Family and Community Health concentration of the Master of Public Health program. "The MPH program was a natural place to start," said Goldman. "This is intended for health professionalsOB/GYNs or endocrinologistswho are going to be seeing primarily women patients. This gener-oriented training from a public health perspective should be a perfect fit with their career training."

Proposed for the next academic year will be a new course on gender and health, featuring the interdisciplinary perspective that is the hallmark of the group. Under consideration is a draft syllabus created by Nancy Krieger, assistant professor in the Department of Health and Social Behavior, and Sofia Gruskin, instructor in the Department of Population and International Health.

"We'd like the next big step to be the creation of an interdepartmental master's degree program," said Gardner. "It's vital that it be an interdisciplinary program because the research important to women's health occurs throughout the school. This perspective brings together all the disciplines and creates a shared responsibility for the program, and enables the creation of a curriculum that's much stronger than one that could be developed within any single department.

"And it isn't just for the curriculum, but also to strengthen the research. There's a great need for more research in women's health, and we expect to be forging interdisciplinary contacts in order to make that research happen."

What research needs to be done? And why doesn't it simply happen under the auspices of the Department of Maternal and Child health? Goldman explained: "When we're talking about 'women and health,' we're not just talking about subject matter, but the orientation, the multiple ways that gender influences health. Not simply the diseases or disorders that occur in women, but how and why women and men might present with different symptoms for the same disorder.

"Take HIV, for example: under the original Centers for Disease Control and Prevention definition of AIDS, many women with the disease were misdiagnosed because they were presenting with symptoms like vaginal infection, rather than with the pneumocystis pneumonia that physicians were looking for. So, until the definition was broadened to include those symptoms, some women were not diagnosed as having an AIDS-related condition or included in AIDS statistics. Increasingly, we are learning that the male model of disease is not the only model."

"The women's health perspective is a different approach to epidemiology," summarized Gardner. "It's more complex than simply biologyit's looking at problems and disorders through a different lens."

The Working Group on Women and Health has already made it easier for students and faculty to learn about scholarship and research in this area at the school. Next year, through the new course and MPH concentration, they begin the expansion of such opportunities. Gardner, Goldman, and the rest of the working group are eager to discuss further steps in the study of women and health at HSPH. Interested faculty and students are invited to contact Gardner at 432-1080 or Goldman at 432-4586.

Above: Marlene Goldman, associate professor, Department of Epidemiology. Bottom: Jane Gardner, senior lecturer, Department of Maternal and Child Health. Goldman and Gardner are part of a group working to expand opportunities at HSPH for training and research in areas relating to gender and health.

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