For the Health of Women

Did you know…

This past week, President Biden signed the first-ever memorandum establishing the White House’s Initiative on Women’s Health Research.

What year is this?

We are just now making women’s health a priority in our nation.

Women.

Our mothers, daughters, granddaughters, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, friends!

No one thought it was important until now that women, who make up two-thirds of the cases of Alzheimer’s, 80 percent of all autoimmune diseases, and most cases of multiple sclerosis deserved a close look at a system of healthcare that provides quality indexes towards generating better women's healthcare?

Women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression and anxiety. They are more likely to get lung cancer. Black and brown women are twice as likely to die in childbirth (stats cited from Maria Shrivers Sunday Paper).

Women make up half the population of our country, yet for far too long they have been underrepresented and understudied.

Like many of you, I have sat in hospital waiting rooms looking for answers to a questionable diagnosis, or worse being talked down to by a physician because of the color of my skin and made to feel as if the reason I'm there is for drugs.

Women have often had surgical procedures with no options for second opinions.

This new Initiative will explore new public-private partnerships and engage private and philanthropic leaders to drive innovation and ensure the combined power of public, private, and philanthropic sectors advance research on women's health.

A recent heart scare had me wishing I had talked to someone earlier about the symptoms I was experiencing because they weren't the typical cardiovascular symptoms of heart disease.

To give women and their healthcare providers the tools and information that they need to more effectively prevent, diagnose, and treat these conditions – from rheumatoid arthritis to menopause to Alzheimer’s disease to cardiovascular disease to endometriosis – our nation must fundamentally change how we approach and fund women’s health research.

The results of this research will give women and their providers the tools they need to advance their quality of life.

Let’s get behind this work for our mothers, grandmothers, daughters, granddaughters, sisters, aunts and friends.

And So It Goes!

"Inspired (In Spirit), we live and move and have our being."