Health Professionals: Your Role in Women's Health

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Programs

Home > Health Professionals > Programs

• ASIST 2010
• BodyWise
• BodyWorks: A Toolkit for Healthy Girls and Strong Women
• Heart Truth Campaign
• Healthy People 2010

The Office on Women's Health (OWH) was established in 1991 within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Its Vision is to ensure that "All Women and Girls are Healthier and Have a Better Sense of Well Being." Its mission is to "provide leadership to promote health equity for women and girls through sex/gender-specific approaches." The strategy OWH uses to achieve its mission and vision is through the development of innovative programs, by educating health professionals, and motivating behavior change in consumers through the dissemination of health information.

The programs below are an example of the many resources OWH offers health professionals and consumers.

ASIST 2010

Team Leader: Barbara James, M.P.H., Director, Division of Program Coordination

Advancing System Improvements to Support Targets for Healthy People 2010 (ASIST2010) is a three-year cooperative agreement program funded by the DHHS Office on Women's Health. ASIST2010 uses a public health systems approach to improve performance on two or more Healthy People 2010 (HP 2010) objectives that target women and/or men in the following Focus Areas:

• Cancer
• Diabetes
• Heart Disease and Stroke
• Access to Quality Health Services
• Educational and Community-Based Programs
• Nutrition and Overweight Physical Activity and Fitness

The goals of the ASIST2010 program are to:

1. Provide additional support to existing public health systems/collaborative partnerships to enable them to add a gender focus to HP 2010 objectives that track the health status of women and/or men, to help improve gender outcome in the targeted population and/or geographic area.
2. Improve surveillance/information systems that allow tracking of program progress on HP 2010 objectives at the grantee level; and 3) develop and implement a plan to sustain the program after OWH funding ends.

The sites participating in the ASIST2010 program represent 4 academic medical centers, 3 community-based organizations, 2 hospitals, 2 State health departments, 1 county health department, and 1 foundation. These include:

• Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands - Saipan, N. Mariana Islands
• Drexel University - Philadelphia, PA
• Healthy Community Coalition - Wilton, ME
• Indiana State Department of Health - Indianapolis, IN
• National Kidney Foundation of Michigan - Ann Arbor, MI
• North Iowa Community Action Organization - Mason City, IA
• St. Elizabeth Medical Center - Edgewood, KY
• The Brigham and Women's Hospital, Inc - Boston, MA
• The University of Illinois at Chicago - Chicago, IL
• Thurston County Public Health and Social Services Department - Olympia, WA
• University of Minnesota - Minneapolis, MN
• University of Utah - Salt Lake City, UT
• Women's Wellness and Maternity Center - Madisonville, TN

BodyWise Eating Disorder Educational Campaign

Team Leader: Ann Abercrombie, M.L.S.

Eating Disorders are disabling illnesses that affect between 1-3 percent of young women in the United States. Congress, in the report language of Health and Human Services (HHS ) Appropriations for Fiscal Year (FY) 1998, directed the Office on Women's Health (OWH) to "develop a national media campaign targeting, but not limited to adolescent girls and women, to educate the public about healthy eating behavior". OWH is sponsoring the "BodyWise Eating Disorders Educational Campaign" targeting middle school educators and providers. The goal of the program is to increase awareness and knowledge of eating disorders, including their signs and symptoms, steps to take when concerned about students, and ways to promote healthy eating and reduce preoccupation with weight and size. An information packet is available that includes materials emphasizing the links among healthy eating, positive body image, and favorable learning outcomes, with some materials targeted to specific racial and ethnic groups. More information on BodyWise packets can be obtained by clicking here.

BodyWorks: A Toolkit for Healthy Girls and Strong Women

Team Leader: Ann Abercrombie, M.L.S.

BodyWorks is a program designed to help parents and caregivers of young adolescent girls (ages 9 to 13) improve family eating and activity habits. Using the BodyWorks Toolkit, the program focuses on parents as role models and provides them with hands-on tools to make small, specific behavior changes to prevent obesity and help maintain a healthy weight.

The BodyWorks program uses a train-the-trainer model to distribute the Toolkit through community-based organizations, state health agencies, non-profit organizations, health clinics, hospitals and health care systems. The program includes one six-hour training module for trainers and ten 90-minute weekly sessions for parents and caregivers. The Office on Women's Health, developed BodyWorks following two years of formative research.

Heart Truth Campaign

OWH is partnering with the National Institutes of Health's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to sponsor a national awareness campaign called The Heart Truth. The Heart Truth campaign is primarily targeted to women ages 40 to 60, the time when a woman's risk of heart disease begins to increase. The campaign warns women about heart disease and provides tools to help them take action against its risk factors.

A key component of The Heart Truth campaign-the Red Dress™ concept-was launched at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, February 7 14, 2003, in New York City during American Heart Month. The campaign's launch put the issue of women and heart disease in the national spotlight with the introduction of the Red Dress as the national symbol for women and heart disease awareness. It underscored the message that "heart disease doesn't care what you wear."

Content last updated December 1, 2008.