Roundup of the Society for Women’s Health Research Event

Shami Feinglass

April 29th was the annual gala dinner for The Society for Women’s Health Research (SWHR), highlighting innovations that incorporate informatics or mobile health technology to advance women’s health.  These technological advances encourage women to manage their own health and empower them to communicate more effectively and efficiently with their healthcare providers to improve their quality of life.  With Surgeon General Regina Benjamin present, Mia Markey, PhD,  The University of Texas at Austin,  was recognized for her work in informatics to develop decision support systems for clinical decision making in women’s health, including breast reconstruction post cancer surgery.

Highlights of the evening were the announcement several exciting new programs: the first is a 100K challenge for Alzheimer’s research, the Geoffrey Beene Neurodiscovery challenge. Sponsored by The Geoffrey Beene Foundation, this program is the first open-source challenge to target male/female differences in cognitive decline.  The second program highlighted was Fatigues to Fabulous ( F2F). Shockingly, the fastest growing segment of homeless are women from military service. Created to ease military women back into civilian life, F2F helps these returning patriots navigate the health system  and trains them in the necessary job skills to succeed at home.

The next SWHR event is: What a Difference an X makes: The state of Women’s Health Research, July 18-19 in DC.  SWHR is a non-profit organization based in Washington, DC, widely recognized as the thought leader in promoting research on sex based biological differences in disease, and is dedicated to transforming women’s health through science, advocacy, and education.

Shami Feinglass is the Vice President of Global Medical and Regulatory Affairs at Zimmer.

Interested in women and health? Learn more about Rock Health’s XX in Health initiative and upcoming XX in Health retreat.