Women's Health Research: Current State of the Art

It is remarkable that only a few years ago, discussions about women's health research often had to be prefaced with the expanded vision of what that concept should actually be in totality as the traditional approach to the health of women had focused on the reproductive system or “bikini medicine,” as Dr Marianne Legato, an internationally recognized specialist in women's health, and others have characterized it. Today, there is an almost universal appreciation of the broader perception of women's health and that research on women includes not just clinical trials but also basic investigation from the molecular level of genes to the many aspects of behavioral and societal influences. This evolution over the past 25 years of what should and does constitute women's health research has been important in influencing the design of biomedical and behavioral research studies and in elucidating factors now implicit in diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to both males and females.(1) And examples of advances from research providing the foundation for public health policies and legislative initiatives only strengthen the understanding of the value of these efforts.(2)