Integrating Reproductive Health Questions into Routine Care

This research project will look at how best to ask reproductive health questions in routine care and other relevant settings.

Background - What do we want to know?

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• The health check for over 40s will now inlcude a question about menopause. However, this is just one aspect of reproductive health and not everyone takes part in the health check.
• We know that patients would like to talk to health providers about their reproductive health, but they struggle to raise it. By reproductive health we mean anything related to periods, fertility, menopause and more.
• We will investigate how best to ask reproductive health questions in routine care and other relevant settings. 

Aims and objectives - Why do we want to know this?

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1. First, we will conduct an Evidence Synthesis (identifying and understanding already available data and knowledge about a topic). This helps us understand where, how and to what extent questions are already integrated into care.
2. Secondly, we will conduct Qualitative Fieldwork (first hand data collection to understand different perspectives). This may involve focus groups with people of reproductive age and health care professionals, understanding different preferences for implementation of reproductive questions into care.

This project started in February 2026 and will end in December 2026.

The team - Who will work on this?

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• Researchers with a mix of experience in reproductive health research.
• Colleagues from Co-Production Collective to advise and facilitate co-production and public and patient involvement.
• Co-Producers to work closely alongside the researchers and help shape the project at each stage.
• Professional services team members supporting the management of the project.
• Members of the Stakeholder Group to advise at key junctures in the projects progress.

Outputs 

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We will produce a Policy Briefing Report (a 25-page summary of our findings) for policy colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care. Alongside this, there will be opportunities to produce other outputs, such as academic papers and ways to communicate this research to other audiences such as, blogs or videos for the public and healthcare professionals.

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The NIHR Policy Research Unit in Reproductive Health is part of the NIHR and hosted by UCL.