Women's Health Updates — March 2019
Learn about recent developments in women's health as well as SWHR's activities that promote the study of sex differences and serve our mission to eliminate imbalances in care for women through science, policy, and education.
SWHR IN THE NEWS
Endometriosis can negatively affect all aspects of a woman’s daily life, yet the disease remains underfunded and under-researched. This greatly limits our understanding and slows much-needed innovation in diagnostic and treatment options, according to a new SWHR expert review in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology .
Migraine affects women differently than men, both physiologically and socially, and these differences are key variables in the diagnosis and management of the disease. In this Practical Pain Management article , SWHR reviews what is known about sex differences in migraine and its relevance to clinical care.
Limiting students' bathroom use or treating it as a discipline issue can have serious health implications — especially when a kid needs to go, but can’t. This article in The Atlantic explores school bathroom policies, citing SWHR's survey of school nurses on the topic.
This Everyday Health Q&A with Dr. Katherine Sharkey, an SWHR Sleep Network member, examines how sleep influences women's health across the lifespan, including during pregnancy, the postpartum period, perimenopause, menopause, and aging.

Also, this Guardian article on sleep health mentions SWHR's Women & Sleep guide .
SCIENCE AND HEALTH
SWHR Board member and cardiologist Nieca Goldberg shares insights on women's heart disease risk and how pregnancy complications such as gestational diabetes or preeclampsia may increase cardiovascular disease risk later in life. Read more on SWHR's blog and watch Dr. Goldberg talk about heart health on Hallmark Home and Family .
The HPV vaccine is one of the major milestones in cancer research, yet vaccination rates remain surprisingly low among U.S. adolescents, even though the vaccine is proven to be safe and effective in preventing cervical cancer, genital warts, and other cancers that affect both sexes. Learn more.
Adult female brains appear, on average, a few years younger than same-aged male brains, a new study finds, suggesting that biological sex affects how brains age and may influence development of neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's. Learn more.
An analysis of more than 11.5 million medical research papers published between 1980 and 2016 found that a majority overlooked the role of sex differences in genetics, physiology, and the way the body responds to drugs, raising concerns about gender bias in research. Read more.
POLICY AND ADVOCACY
To encourage the inclusion of meaningful input from women in the FDA's Patient-Focused Drug Development Program, SWHR developed a set of principles to inform topics addressed in FDA’s PFDD guidance documents that have implications for women and their health. Read SWHR's principles.
SWHR praised the research objectives outlined in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's five-year strategic plan as well as provided recommendations to help guide research on pregnancy and women’s reproductive health. Read SWHR's letter and watch this video to learn more about NICHD's planning process.
To better understand and begin to reduce maternal mortality in the United States, there is a need for consistent, reliable collection, storage, and dissemination of data, according to this Health Affairs article . Standardizing data will enable state-to-state and national comparisons, learnings, and data sharing, the authors write.
EVENTS AND DEADLINES
Join SWHR on  May 1, 2019 , at our Annual Awards Dinner in Washington, DC, to honor three visionary leaders who have advanced women's health.   Buy tickets or sponsor the event  to support our mission to eliminate imbalances in care for women through science, policy, and education.
Register for Conferences on Women's Health and Sex Differences
Early  registration  for the annual VCU Women's Health conference ends on March 15.  View the brochure for program highlights.
Registration is open for the Organization of the Study of Sex Differences 2019 annual meeting, taking place May 5-8 in Washington, DC.   Register today.