GenderBiology.net

Women Have Special Concerns With Prescription Medications

SOURCE:  Medical News Today

DATE:  October 30, 2009

EXCERPT: "Most people have taken a prescription medication at one time or another, but according to a report from the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) n Rockville, Md., not only do women take more medications during their lifetimes, women are more likely to suffer from adverse drug events than men."   more

Health Insurance Reform

FACT SHEETS

Women's Health Policy Facts: Women's Health Insurance Coverage. [fact sheet].  October 2008.  Washington, D.C.: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. 

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PUBLICATIONS

Health and Health Care Access Among California Women Ages 50-64.  February 24, 2010. UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. 

Health Care and the 2008 Elections: Women's Health Policy. October 2008. Washington, D.C.: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. 

Many U.S. Women Short on Health Insurance.

National Report Card on Women’s Health: Women and Health Insurance.  From the National Women’s Law Center and Oregon Health & Science University

Roadblocks to Health Care: Why the Current Health Care System DOES NOT Work for WOMEN.
From Health Reform.gov

Women and Health Care: A National Profile: Key Findings from the Kaiser Women's Health Survey. July 2005. Washington, D.C.: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. 

Women and Health Coverage: The Affordability Gap.  By Elizabeth M. Patchias and Judy Waxman, National Women’s Law Center

Women's Health and Health Reform: The Economic Burden of Disease in Women.  [2009]. Washington, D.C.: Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health, School of Public Health and Health Services, George Washington University [made possible by the Women Donors Network and the Communications Consortium Media Center].  Podcast.   Press release.

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ORGANIZATIONS & INITIATIVES

The Jacobs Institute of Women's Health, School of Public Health and Health Services, George Washington University.  Women's Health and Health Care Reform. 

Raising Women's Voices. 2009. Avery Institute for Social Change , the National Women’s Health Network, and the MergerWatch Project  of Community Catalyst .

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Blood Clot Risk Higher In Apple-Shaped Men And Pear-Shaped Women, Danish Study

SOURCE:  Medical News Today

DATE:  October 29, 2009

EXCERPT: "New research from Denmark suggests that where middle-aged men and women carry excess body fat affects their risk of developing blood clots like deep vein thrombosis (DVT) , with apple-shaped men who carry excess fat mainly around the waist and pear-shaped women who carry excess fat mainly around the hips having the highest risk."  more

RELATED PUBMED LINK:

Severinsen MT, Kristensen SR, Johnsen SP, Dethlefsen C, Tjønneland A, Overvad K. Anthropometry, body fat, and venous thromboembolism: a Danish follow-up study. Circulation. 2009 Nov 10;120(19):1850-7.

Kaiser Health News Examines Issue Of Gender Rating In Health Reform Debate

SOURCE:  Medical News Today

DATE:  October 29. 3009

EXCERPT: "Kaiser Health News recently examined how health care reform legislation may affect the insurance industry practice known as gender rating, in which insurers use gender as a factor in determining the cost of policies. The practice often results in women paying more than men for similar policies because they typically use more medical services, such as maternity and reproductive health care. Some advocacy groups argue that using gender as a basis to charge more for health insurance is discriminatory and are pushing for it to be made illegal under health reform, according to KHN."    more

RELATED LINK:

Gold, Jenny. Fight Erupts over Health Insurance Rates for Businesses with more Women. Kaiser Health News. TOPICS: Health Disparities, Health Reform, Insurance.  October 25, 2009.

Quality Improvement Program Increases Hospitals' Adherence To Evidenced-Based Care, Reduces Gender-, Age-Related Disparities

SOURCE:  Medical News Today

DATE:  October 29, 3009

EXCERPT: "Participation in the American Heart Association's Get With The Guidelines® quality improvement program significantly improves hospitals' adherence to evidence-based therapies and reduces gender- and age-related disparities in the care of coronary artery disease patients,

....

"It has been shown that, in many healthcare settings, evidence-based therapies for coronary artery disease are applied less to women than to men and less to elderly patients than to younger patients,  .... [states] lead author of the study ....   "    more

RELATED LINK:

William R. Lewis, A. Gray Ellrodt, Eric Peterson, Adrian F. Hernandez, Kenneth A. LaBresh, Christopher P. Cannon, Wenqin Pan, and Gregg C. Fonarow. Trends in the Use of Evidence-Based Treatments for Coronary Artery Disease Among Women and the Elderly: Findings From the Get With the Guidelines Quality-Improvement Program. Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes, Nov 2009; 2: 633 - 641.

Heart Attacks Become More Common But Less Often Fatal In Women

SOURCE:  Medical News Today

DATE:  October 27, 2009

EXCERPT:  "Heart attacks appear to have become more common in middle-aged women over the past two decades, but all women and especially those younger than 55 have recently experienced a greater increase than men in their chances of survival following such a heart event, .... "    more

RELATED PUBMED LINK:

Towfighi A, Zheng L, Ovbiagele B. Sex-specific trends in midlife coronary heart disease risk and prevalence. Arch Intern Med. 2009 Oct 26;169(19):1762-6.

Vaccarino V, Parsons L, Peterson ED, Rogers WJ, Kiefe CI, Canto J. Sex differences in mortality after acute myocardial infarction: changes from 1994 to 2006. Arch Intern Med. 2009 Oct 26;169(19):1767-74.

Heart attacks more common, less deadly for women

SOURCE:  MedPage Today

DATE:  October 26, 2009

EXCERPT:  "Heart attack rates have increased among middle-age women in the past two decades, but the risk of a woman dying from a heart attack has dropped, new studies have found."  more

RELATED PUBMED LINK:

Towfighi A, Zheng L, Ovbiagele B. Sex-specific trends in midlife coronary heart disease risk and prevalence. Arch Intern Med. 2009 Oct 26;169(19):1762-6.

Vaccarino V, Parsons L, Peterson ED, Rogers WJ, Kiefe CI, Canto J. Sex differences in mortality after acute myocardial infarction: changes from 1994 to 2006. Arch Intern Med. 2009 Oct 26;169(19):1767-74.

Sex Based Prenatal Brain Differences Found

SOURCE:  Medical News Today

DATE:  October 24, 2009

EXCERPT:  "Prenatal sex-based biological differences extend to genetic expression in cerebral cortices. The differences in question are probably associated with later divergences in how our brains develop."  more

RELATED PUBMED LINK:

Reinius B, Jazin E. Prenatal sex differences in the human brain. Mol Psychiatry. 2009 Nov;14(11):987, 988-9.

When Identifying Emotions, Women Outperform Men

SOURCE:  Medical News Today

DATE:  October 23, 2009

EXCERPT: "Women are better than men at distinguishing between emotions, especially fear and disgust, ....  [researchers]  demonstrated that women are better than men at processing auditory, visual and audiovisual emotions."   more

RELATED PUBMED LINK:

Collignon O, Girard S, Gosselin F, Saint-Amour D, Lepore F, Lassonde M. Women process multisensory emotion expressions more efficiently than men. Neuropsychologia. 2009 Sep 15.

Cocaine Exposure During Pregnancy Leads To Impulsivity In Male, Not Female, Monkeys

SOURCE:  Medical News Today

DATE:   October 23, 2009

EXCERPT: "Adult male monkeys exposed to cocaine while in the womb have poor impulse control and may be more vulnerable to drug abuse than female monkeys, even a decade or more after the exposure, according to a new study  .... "   more

RELATED LINK:

Presented by Lindsey Hamilton at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting October 17-21, 2009 in Chicago.