Women's Health Research Day to Feature Variety of Presentations

Posted on Feb. 23, 2004

Health researchers from across the state will give presentations on research areas including breast cancer, eating disorders and osteoporosis at the fifth annual Women’s Health Research Day to be held March 17 at UNC.

The event, free to the public, will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Medical Biomolecular Research Building.

UNC System President Molly Broad will give opening remarks, followed by juried presentations and remarks from health research and other leaders on various topics. Gov. Mike Easley ’72 has proclaimed March 17 as Women’s Health Research Day in North Carolina.

The event is sponsored by UNC’s Center for Women’s Health Research, a collaborative program of the schools of medicine and public health and the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research.

Many of the research day topics will help in the designing of interventions to eliminate health disparities and decrease the incidence of diseases affecting women, said Dr. Ruth Petersen, director of women’s preventive health research at the center.

Topics to be presented include a comparison of birth outcomes among U.S.-born and non-U.S.-born Hispanic N.C. women, breastfeeding’s ability to protect against overweight, disabled women’s health-care access, the relationship between a high-glycemic diet and the risk of diabetes and more.

“In 2001, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences confirmed that the differences between the sexes exist in the prevalence and severity of a broad range of diseases, disorders and conditions,” said Dr. Valerie Parisi, Robert A. Ross professor and chair of the UNC School of Medicine’s department of obstetrics and gynecology. “Gender-based research matters in ways we did not expect.”

Organizers ask that participants register for the event.

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