WHSIG hosts presentation by co-author of sweeping report card grading states on women’s health

WHSIG hosts presentation by co-author of sweeping report card grading states on women’s healthFebruary 22, 2001Kelly Homan Rodoskikahoman@syr.edu

The Syracuse University/Upstate Women’s Health Interest Group will present “Making the Grade on Women’s Health: A National and State-by-State Report Card” from 2 to 4 p.m. March 6 at the Institute for Human Performance, located on the corner of Irving Avenue and Harrison Street. Dr. Michelle Berlin, co-director of FOCUS on Health & Leadership for Women at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, will be the guest speaker. The report card is the first ever to comprehensively assess the overall health of women at the state and national levels. The authors reviewed more than 70 public policies that affect women’s health and the data for 32 indicators of women’s health status. “It’s particularly alarming that, of the 25 indicators of women’s health status for which we established benchmarks, no state met all of them and all of the states missed 10,” says Berlin, one of the principal authors of the report card. “The 50 states and the District of Columbia all met only one benchmark–the percentage of women age 50 and over who received mammograms. This is not good enough.” The report card was issued in August 2000 by the National Women’s Law Center, FOCUS on Health & Leadership for Women and The Lewin Group. It is available online at http://www.nwlc.org/health.cfm?section=health. The SU/Upstate Women’s Health Interest Group was established in November 1999 by interested faculty, researchers and health care providers in the greater Syracuse community to promote research collaboration and dissemination of information about women’s health. The group presents monthly seminars, explores project collaborations, hosts guest speakers, writes grant proposals, and fosters networking. All interested persons are invited to participate. For more information, contact Kim Jaffee at 443-4017 or kdjaffee@syr.edu, Martha Bonney at 443-2703 or mbonney@maxwell.syr.edu, or visit the organization’s Web site at http://www-cpr.maxwell.syr.edu/whealthsig.