One of my favorite things about working at Northwestern University is access to the Women’s Health Research Monthly Forums, introduced by the Institute for Women’s Health Research in 2008. The monthly forums were developed to address a significant barrier to advancing women’s health research: lack of awareness among health professionals, researchers and consumers that sex and gender matter in health and disease. Through the monthly forums, the Institute provides a platform for leading professionals to present their evidence-based research that focuses on basic science, clinical applications, or social implications of gender differences. Each month, faculty and staff from Northwestern University and Northwestern Memorial Hospital attend the forum to gain a better understanding of women’s health. The three key objectives of the monthly forums are:
- To present current links between basic science research, clinical research and social/behavioral research to advance women’s health.
- To provide support and role models for emerging women’s health scholars via those who are already conducting sex- and gender-specific research.
- To encourage more sex- and gender-based research studies
Next week, on Tuesday, September 11th at 12:00pm CDT, the Women’s Health Research Institute is presenting: What Can Women and their Healthcare Providers Expect from the Affordable Care Act, led by Debra Stulberg, MD, MA, Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of Chicago. The Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare, is a health care law that aims to improve our current health care system by increasing access to health coverage for Americans and introducing new protections for people who have health insurance. Under the Affordable Care Act, 47 million women will now have access to life-saving preventive care, such as mammograms and contraception, without paying any more out of their own pockets. Women and children face unique health risks and benefit from different preventive services and for too long, many have gone without these services due to out-of-pocket costs or lack of coverage.
Some Parts of the Law Right Now:
- Young adults can now stay on their parent’s health plan up to age 26.
- Insurance companies can’t deny health coverage to kids with pre-existing conditions, such as cancer.
- Adults who have been uninsured for at least 6 months and have been denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition, may now get coverage.
- Insurance companies can’t place dollar limits on the health care they cover in your lifetime, assuring people with diseases such as cancer, that they can continue to get the health care coverage they need.
President Obama recalled his mother telling him, “You can tell how far a society is going to go by how it treats its women and girls. And if they’re doing well, then the society is going to do well; and if they’re not, then they won’t be.” With that principle in mind, these new guidelines for women’s preventive health are a crucial step forward for the health of women, and for our society as a whole.
Please join us, Tuesday, September 11th at 12pm CDT in Prentice Women’s Hospital for What Can Women and their Healthcare Providers Expect from the Affordable Care Act? Click here to register for this event (space is limited). Forum registration closes September 10, 2012; or when room reaches capacity.