NIHR Workshop to address the Health of Women

The National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) Policy Research Unit in Reproductive Health (RH-PRU) co-Directors Dr Jennifer Hall and Professor Judith Stephenson, along with RH-PRU collaborator Prof Melanie Davies and UCL Institute for Women’s Health Director Prof Anna David, attended the cross-NIHR meeting on the Health of Women. The meeting, bringing together representatives from NIHR funded infrastructure, such as the Biomedical Research Centres, Applied Research Centres and the relevant policy research units, was held in Birmingham on 1^st Feb 2024.

Attendees were brought together to explore opportunities to enable research into the health of women as envisaged in the Women's Health Strategy. There was support for the reframing of Women’s Health as the Health of Women in an attempt to move the focus from solely maternity and reproductive health. This is in light of the evidence that some conditions, such as autoimmune disease, are more common in women, and others, such as cardiovascular disease are experienced differently. Conditions such as dementia and bone health are increasingly important. Working together with women was also a theme that came up repeatedly. A visual record of the meeting was made (see above illustration by Laura Brodrick @laurabrodrick).

While the RH-PRU is focused on Reproductive Health, by taking a lifecourse approach we can clearly see the links with the Health of Women. For example, conditions before and during pregnancy can give an indication of future risk – we know that women who develop gestational diabetes are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes in the future. Understanding more about this, and about the interplay between general health and reproductive health, is an important area of research going forward and one that the RH-PRU will be looking at within the Data project.