Women's Health

In 1992, in the Congressional appropriations report for Fiscal Year (FY) 1993, the Senate and House requested that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (formerly the Public Health Service) Office on Women’s Health (OWH), and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Office of Women’s Health work together to describe the extent to which women’s health content is included in the medical curriculum. In 1993, in the FY 1994 appropriations report, Congress broadened its concern to curricula of all health professionals. The Director of the ORWH; the HRSA Senior Advisor, Women’s Health; and program staff of the HRSA Bureau of Health Professions responded to these requests for assessments of curricula in health professions education, beginning first with medicine, to set a format and model instrument that could be used for other health professions. The result was the first of these reports, Women’s Health in the Medical Curriculum, Report of a Survey and Recommendations, published in 1996. This report was followed by the reports Women’s Health in the Dental School Curriculum, Report of a Survey and Recommendations, in 1999, and Women’s Health in the Baccalaureate Nursing School Curriculum: Report of a Survey and Recommendations, in 2001. Recognizing that pharmacists represent the third largest group of health professionals in the United States, the assessment was extended to pharmacy education. This report represents the culmination of the efforts of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) and collaborating organizations [American Pharmacists Association (APhA), American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP), the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and the UIC/U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Center of Excellence in Women’s Health, and the University of Arizona Center for Education and Research on Therapeutics (Arizona CERT)]. The work was supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Research on Women’s Health, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office on Women’s Health.

Federal efforts to address specific women’s health issues, especially research on women’s health and women’s health care concerns, have continued to expand during the mid 1980s. Scientists, clinicians, and the public have become increasingly aware of the inequities in women’s health and the need to include adequate numbers of women as participants in clinical trials. More formal programs and policies have been developed since 1990. These efforts include the education of health professionals about the expanded concepts of women’s health across the lifespan, including sex and gender comparisons. New attention is being given to securing funding for specific women’s health concerns, overcoming the barriers to accessing health care services, and preparing and promoting women in senior health and scientific positions in the Nation’s public and private academic and health care institutions and organizations.

Through collaboration among HRSA, NIH, the OWH, AACP, and other organizations, significant progress is being made toward expanding and enhancing the education of future health care professionals, including pharmacists, on the growing body of women’s health-related knowledge. This project has contributed valuable materials to support that education. To improve the health care of women, it is important that pharmacy students learn about women’s health issues, including sex and gender factors affecting health, wellness, and disease manifestation and treatment across the female lifespan; the critical social and environmental factors impacting women’s health; emerging knowledge resulting from research on women’s health; and the importance of pharmacist-patient interactions to health and well-being of female patients. The developed materials will help pharmacy faculty address these issues in a threaded way throughout the pharmacy curriculum; in didactic and experiential courses, and across required and focused elective courses.

This report provides information that can increase the awareness of policy makers and health professions educators about the full range of content and desired student outcomes needed for understanding of women’s health issues and optimal health care for female patients. The articulation of these content areas and student outcomes is an important first step in expanding and enhancing women’s health instruction of future pharmacists. Additionally, the compiled resources will advance the educational process further by providing access to quality materials to facilitate the integration of women’s health content across the curriculum. We trust this information and these materials will serve as a resource for institutions to consider, adapt, and integrate into their evolving curricula so they are able to optimize the ability of graduates to provide quality health care to women across their life span.