Introducing Negin Nia

We are excited to introduce you to the Women Health Research Cluster's first-ever Events and Communications Specialist, Negin Nia. Negin will be in charge of leading some of our knowledge translation initiatives including the Women's Health Blog, producing the Women's Health Interrupted podcast, and will support our conferences, and events. Read more.

New Student Staff

We have three new student staff joining us this fall to support our blog, podcast, and communications. Congratulations to Chhavi Mehra, Shayda Swann, and Sarah Williscraft — we are so excited to work with you!

Welcome Back Team

We also have several student staff returning to work with us this year that we want to celebrate. This team works hard to help us achieve sex-and-gender health equity worldwide by conducting research on SGBA, finding compelling research to disseminate and supporting a myriad of events. We are looking forward to another year together.

Anybody up for a field trip? The Women’s Health Interrupted podcast is bringing you a special mini-series hosted by Dr. Marina Adshade and Damara Featherstone. “Field Trip” aims to find out what every women’s health researcher should know about socioeconomic status by talking with experts in the arts and humanities. Join us every second Wednesday—starting TODAY—for five revealing episodes.

In the first episode launched today, we talk to Dr. Ketty Anyeko about how economic barriers prevent many women from seeking justice and reparations in their lives. 

Using The Power of Sex Differences in Research: What a Difference 10 Years Did Not Make 

“Females have been overlooked in health research for decades, and despite 10 years of advancements and improvements in knowledge, this has still not changed significantly.” Read more.

Behind the Science: New Ways of Investigating Ovarian Cancer Prevention 

“We now have studies that show that removing the fallopian tubes is effective at preventing the most common and deadly form of ovarian cancer.” Read more.

Calling all authors! We are recruiting anyone with expertise in migraine and women's health, abortions rights and/or transgender people in the olympics to write a blog for us on these topics. Please submit your blog idea here or email womenshealth.blog@ubc.ca for more questions. 

Sept 15th Early Bird Deadline 

The early bird registration for our Mind the Gap: Hormonal Contraceptives and Brain Health conference has been extended. Join us to hear from experts about hormonal contraceptives and brain issues that affect women. Only one day left to receive up to a 40 per cent discount!

Sept 22nd  Women’s Health Research Knowledge Mobilization to Improve Policy, Practice and Outcomes

The Partnership for Women’s Health Research is kicking off their new seminar series with this event exploring processes and outcomes of knowledge mobilization for women’s, trans and non-binary health. This panel will discuss working with communities to design and implement women’s health research.

9-10:30 am PDT | Read more | Register here.

Sept 23rd Trainee Presentation Series

The speaker topics will include:

• The resilience of rural women experiencing economic abuse in the context of gender-based violence.
• In-vitro fertilization and heart health: Is there a link?
• Menopause , cardiometabolic health, and the brain.
• Prevalence of anxiety and depression in both symptomatic and asymptomatic surgically-confirmed endometriosis patients.
• Female reproductive health and kidney disease.

Sept 26th A Big-Data Approach to Women’s Health Research

In this women’s health seminar Dr. de Lange will share her experience with using UK Biobank data to address women’s health research questions, including challenges encountered in big-data analyses.

12-1 pm PDT | Read more | Register here.

Funding

HEAL Initiative: Opioid Exposure and Effects on Placenta Function, Brain Development, and Neurodevelopmental Outcomes (international)

This NIH funding opportunity invites any international grant applications to study the impact of opioids, alone or in combination with other substances of misuse, on placenta function and neurodevelopment during pregnancy and in the first year of life. Up to €10 million for 6 year projects is available. Due Dec 7th 2022. Read more.

Health Innovation Funding Investment (UBC-only)

UBC Health is offering up to $25,000 through the Health Innovation Funding Investment (HIFI) Awards to faculty members at UBC Vancouver and UBC Okanagan who are collaborating across faculties, disciplines, and campuses to develop new teams, pursue new ideas, or translate findings from innovative health-related research. In addition to the general, open call for HIFI, UBC is inviting applications that focus on initiatives which promote diversity and inclusion and have the potential to impact health equity across individuals, communities, and societies. Due Oct 14, 2022. Read more.

National Women’s Health Research Initiative 

CIHR has announced the launch of the National Women’s Health Research Initiative. The initiative will advance a coordinated research program that addresses under-researched and high-priority areas of women’s health and will ensure new evidence improves women’s and gender-diverse people’s care and health outcomes. It is anticipated that $9.6M will be allocated to the initiative. Due Feb 23rd. Read more. 
 

Job Market 

Interviewer, Perinatal Anxiety Screening Study

The UBC Perinatal Anxiety Research Lab (PARLab) is looking to hire one or more interviewers for a CIHR-funded study of perinatal anxiety screening tools. The selected candidates would evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of proposed screening tools for perinatal anxiety and related disorders. Read more.
 

Take Action

Petitions to the Government of Canada

There is a petition to increase funding for Canada’s graduate students and postdocs. These groups are seen as the frontline workers of Canadian research, development and future STEM leaders. However, they are still paid less than minimum wage. Sign here.

Women represent 50 per cent of Canada’s population yet they are only 30 per cent of the House of Commons legislators. This petition is calling for practical commitment to help with this gender gap by the next federal election in 2025. Note: only Canadian citizens and residents can sign. Sign here.

Research

Women's decision-making autonomy in Dutch maternity care (Vogels-Broeke et al., 2022).

Association between mistreatment of women during childbirth and symptoms suggestive of postpartum depression (Paiz et al.,2022). 

Post-abortion contraceptive prevalence rate as a sexual and reproductive health indicator (Wall, Lathrop, & Haddad, 2022).
 

News

New Mexico to build abortion clinic near Texas border after Roe decision (The Guardian).

Women journalists targeted in coordinated campaign of hate: Canadian Association of Journalists (CTV).

More than 6 drinks a week leads to higher health risks, new report suggests — especially for women (CBC).

U3 Administrative Supplement Award

Congratulations to Shilpa Rao, one of our WHRC Trainee Members for getting her research funding through LARGE-PD, The Latin American Research consortium on the Genetics of Parkinson’s Disease. Shilpa will be broadening her work looking at women-specific health factors in Parkinson’s Disease across Latin America. Read more.

CIHR Planning and Dissemination Grant 

Four of our Women’s Health Research Cluster members have received the CIHR Planning and Dissemination Grant. Congratulations to Dr. Liisa Galea (top left), Dr. Sofia Ahmed (bottom right), Dr. Lori Brotto (top right), and Dr. Marianne Vidler (bottom left). Read more.

We’d like to formally welcome the following new members to our cluster. We’re happy to have you working alongside us to support women’s health!

• Minal Mussawar, M.D. Candidate, University of Saskatchewan (Canada).

• Kamala Payyapilly Thiruvenkatanathan, Ph.D. Candidate, Pennsylvania State University (USA).

• Marjan Cheragi, Undergraduate student, University of British Columbia (Canada).

• Anna Brugulat-Serrat, Neuropsychologist and Post-doctoral researcher, Barcelonabeta Brain Research Center (Spain).

• Jill Shillito, Undergraduate student, University of British Columbia Okanagan (Canada).

• Sabrina Luke, Epidemiologist, Provincial Health Services Authority (Canada).

• Ophélie Hanot, Ph.D. Student, Vincent Prevot's laboratory (France).

• Xinru Pang, Master’s student, University of British Columbia (Canada). 

• Chinmayee Bhedi, Venture Analyst, Creative Destruction Lab (Canada).

• Madeline Wood, Master’s student, University of Toronto (Canada). 

• Candace Oghide, Master’s student, McMaster University (Canada).

• Jalisa Karim, Undergraduate student and trainee, University of British Columbia (Canada).

• Alyssa Smith, Ph.D. Student, University of Waterloo (Canada). 

• Jacynthe L'Heureux, Ph.D. Student,  University of British Columbia (Canada).

• Claudia Cargnelli, Master of Science in Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia (Canada).

• Sheila Hirani, Associate Professor, University of Regina (Canada). 

• Nicole Larsen, Master’s student, University of Calgary (Canada).

There is a desperate need to grow the discipline of women’s health research to overcome the concerning gaps in knowledge that jeopardize women’s health. Please donate today to catalyze women’s health research worldwide. Your gift will support: 
 
• Publications, education and academic opportunities that will enable groundbreaking knowledge translation to help transform women’s health on a global scale
• Vital advocacy efforts to change the policies and practices that are impeding women’s health research