Global Women’s Health

According to the United Nations World Health Organization, women’s health is of particular concern in global health efforts. In many societies, women and girls are disadvantaged by systemic discrimination. Gendered sociocultural factors such as unequal power relationships between men and women, differential access to education, food, housing, legal assistance and paid employment, agency over one’s own body, and political and environmental stability can greatly impact women’s health and wellbeing. Further, they face unique reproductive health risks including maternal morbidity and mortality, septic abortion, gynecologic cancers, and HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.

Division of Women’s Health faculty are researching social determinants of health from a global perspective and implementing interventions to improve women’s health in numerous countries. This research includes:

• Studying health-seeking behavior and designing and testing socio-behavioral interventions to treat HIV-infected populations in low-resource settings
• Implementing clinical innovations to improve access to breast and cervical cancer screening and prevention and access to family planning
• Studying how the determinants of physical growth affect risk for chronic diseases such as cardiometabolic disease
• Using evidence-based data on the impacts of nutritional supplementation and fortification during childhood and pregnancy to change national policies and recommendations
• Evaluating healthcare provider education on treating survivors of human-trafficking and understanding risk and resilience factors for human trafficking to inform prevention efforts