Researchers are hoping to recruit more than 160,000 women ages 50 to 79 throughout the nation. Emory WHI investigators at the School of Medicine, the School of Public Health and the School of Nursing are trying to recruit nearly 3,600 postmenopausal women, including minority women.
"Participation in WHI gives women the opportunity to help shape the future of health care for themselves and their daughters," said WHI investigator
Ora Strickland, director of nursing research at Emory. "We also need minority women to help researchers better understand the diseases that affect us physically, emotionally, financially and psychologically."
Bernadine Healy, who launched the WHI during her tenure as the first female director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will present a public forum on women's health issues, on Friday, Oct. 20, at 3 p.m. at the Holiday Inn, 130 Clairmont Ave., Decatur.
She will discuss the gender gap in medical research and practice. One of the nation's pioneers in the advancement of women's health care, Healy will advise women on how to become competent, well-informed health care consumers who are not reluctant to make demands of the medical community.
Currently dean of the College of Medicine at The Ohio State University, Healy is particularly interested in the Emory component of WHI, since it includes many African American women -- an understudied population. African Americans are at much higher risk than other women for certain chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, stroke and diabetes.
-- Lorri Preston
Facts about the Women's Health Initiative
* The Women's Health Initiative (WHI) is a National Institutes of Health-sponsored study that focuses research on the causes and treatments of heart disease, cancer and osteoporosis -- chronic diseases that are the major causes of death, disability and frailty in women of all races and socioeconomic strata.
* The WHI will attempt to redress many of the inequities in women's health research and provide practical information to women and their physicians about hormone replacement therapy, dietary patterns and calcium/vitamin D supplements.
* Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women in the United States; approximately 90 percent of all heart disease deaths among women occur after menopause.
* Studies have shown that heart disease in women often goes undetected and untreated until the disease has become severe. As a result, 39 percent of women who have heart attacks die within one year, compared to 31 percent of men.
* One in eight women can now expect to develop breast cancer in her lifetime. In 1960, this ratio was one in 20 women. The death rate from breast cancer increased 24 percent between 1979 and 1986.
* In 1990, of the 7 million women over age 75, nearly 2 million were either unable or limited in their ability to carry out major life activities. Although not a major cause of mortality in older women, osteoporotic fractures account for a great deal of disability in older women.
For information on how to participate in the Women's Health Initiative study, call (770) 473-8600 or 1-800-54WOMEN.
Momentum still building for Women's Health Initiative