Newswise — TAMPA (Saturday, March 25, 2023) – Clinical trial participation was associated with improved overall survival (OS) compared to no trial participation among women with platinum-resistant epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), according to a research study presented today at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2023 Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer.
In the retrospective (2009-2017), single-institution cohort study by Molly Morton, MD and Laura Chambers, DO, et al., EOC cancer patients were divided into two cohorts – 46 clinical trial participants (CTP) and 259 participants receiving standard of care therapy (SOC).
Amongst the two groups, there were no significant differences in age, BMI, race, medical co-morbidities, and ECOG performance status. In addition, there was no difference in PARP inhibitor use, Bevacizumab, or intraperitoneal chemotherapy among the two groups. CTP were exposed to a greater number of prior therapy lines compared to SOC.
After analysis, CTP was associated with significantly improved OS (13.8 months) than SOC (10.5 months), underscoring the importance of the availability and participation in clinical trials in the gynecologic cancer space.
“Effective treatment options for platinum resistant ovarian cancer are limited, and our data underscores the importance of clinical trial access for all patients with this condition to improve patient outcomes,” Morton shares. “Better understanding of the benefits of clinical trial participation may lead to improved counseling and enrollment, and further study of individual provider and patient barriers to engagement with clinical trials is critical to advancing patient care.”
As availability and participation in clinical trials in the gynecologic cancer care space increases, researchers must be mindful of current racial disparities and work to ensure that research funding allocations address them.
In a study by Linda Zambrano Guevera, MS, et al., National Cancer Institute funding allocations between 2011-2018 were assessed for difference in lethality by race for female reproductive cancers including female breast, uterine, ovarian, and cervical cancer.
Results showed that the funding to lethality score was lowest for Black individuals with uterine cancer specifically, while the highest funding to lethality score was for White individuals with breast cancer.
“Research is an important tool to ameliorate disparities,” shares Zambrano Guevera. “Gynecologic cancers are significantly underfunded compared to other types of malignancies, which is particularly alarming given stark disparities. SGO and other stakeholders have put energy and resources to lobby research funding agencies to ensure more equitable access to research to underfunded cancers, and must continue to do so to improve clinical outcomes for gynecologic cancer patients.”
About SGO The Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) is the premier medical specialty society for health care professionals trained in the comprehensive management of gynecologic cancers. As a 501(c)(6) organization, SGO contributes to the advancement of gyn cancer care by encouraging research, providing education, raising standards of practice, advocating for patients and members and collaborating with other domestic and international organizations. Learn more at www.sgo.org.
Newswise — TAMPA (Saturday, March 25, 2023) – Administering PARP inhibitor (PARPi) olaparib prior to surgical intervention and chemotherapy in ovarian cancer patients with a germline mutation – a new approach – is feasible and resulted in favorable surgical options, managable adverse events, and positive health outcomes, according to results from the Neoadjuvant Olaparib Window (NOW) Trial presented today by Shannon N. Westin, MD, MPH et al. at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2023 Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer.
Results from this study showed that olaparib given in the neoadjuvant (NA) setting was feasible, with 100% of trial participants able to receive the planned two cycles. Of 93% participants able to to undergo subsequent surgery, all achieved optimal tumor reduction.
Among patients treated first with two cycles of NA olaparib, followed by surgery and adjuvant CT, 85% had no evidence of disease at the completion of all therapies.
Adverse events during olaparib treatment were as expected with abdominal pain, constipation, anemia, nausea, and pain observed most commonly. The only severe adverse event reported was G3 anemia in three patients.
“Patients are interested in receiving therapies specifically targeting their tumor,” Westin shares. “There was great excitement among patients for the opportunity to not receive chemotherapy.”
The NOW Trial (NCT03943173) was a single arm, open label pilot study for advanced stage, high grade epithelial ovarian, peritoneal, or fallopian tube carcinoma. All patients had germline mutation in BRCA1, BRCA2, RAD51C or PALB2. Fifteen total patients were treated, with median age of 56 years. Forty percent had stage four disease.
Historically, PARPi usage has followed cytotoxic chemotherapy as a maintenance medication, often taken long-term amongst patients with ovarian cancer.
These new findings help justify further research studies to determine if PARPi can be given in lieu of chemotherapy in the NA setting – a new usage of the medication.
“This study provides a potential template for how we might vet targeted therapies earlier in the treatment continuum,” Westin said. “As drug options increase, it is encouraging to see opportunities for patients to get testing at diagnosis and receive targeted therapy in lieu of or in addition to chemotherapy.”
About SGO The Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) is the premier medical specialty society for health care professionals trained in the comprehensive management of gynecologic cancers. As a 501(c)(6) organization, SGO contributes to the advancement of gyn cancer care by encouraging research, providing education, raising standards of practice, advocating for patients and members and collaborating with other domestic and international organizations. Learn more at www.sgo.org.
Known by her nickname, Ega was one of 15 women selected to participate in the UN Development Programme-supported Perempuan Inspiratif Mitra Polhut (Inspiring Women to Partner with Forest Rangers) initiative, which aims to protect the Bogani Nani Wartabone National Park and provide opportunities to nearby communities.
“I have always been passionate about nature and conservation. I grew up in a village surrounded by forests. Both of my grandfathers inspired me by sharing their local and traditional wisdom and encouraged me to know the forest and plant trees. They told me about nature’s power and explained that the language of nature is the oldest language on Earth, and so we have to listen to it.
It’s kind of a little bit mystical. For example, according to stories, if you see a lot of ants coming up out of the ground, it means it’s going to rain very soon.
The message from my grandfathers is that the energy and the language of the nature should be appreciated and respected.
‘My life changed’
Since high school, I’ve been active in the environmental movement, and I studied international relations at university to keep my mind open to what is happening in the world. I always wanted to return to my home village after graduating.
My life changed in November 2020 when I joined the initiative, the first of its kind in Indonesia.
We were given basic police training and education on communication, negotiation, and entrepreneurship skills.
We were also taught how to empower local villagers to eke out alternative sustainable livelihoods and to work more closely alongside the national park authority.
I learned what rangers do and became more passionate about the work. Now I am really proud to be serving the community.
The community rangers help to protect endangered species. There are mammals, reptiles, and more than 100 bird species that make their home in the park.
Working with national park forest rangers, we also play a role in stamping out crime and combating the illicit fauna and flora market and illegal wildlife trade.
I work at least 10 days a month, but in reality, because of the nature of the work, it takes a longer time to invest in terms of getting a commitment or “buy in” from the community. Part of it is building connections.
‘Conservation lady’
It feels very satisfying to know that our effort can change someone’s life for the better. Like when we can facilitate community groups to get certifications, enabling them to access sustainable markets for their products. I think there is so much more I can do for nature, but also for improving myself and my community for better opportunities.
I feel encouraged to talk about conservation and engage more with my community. I am motivated to talk to people. It’s funny, but people in my village now think of me not only as Ega but as “the conservation lady”, or the person you need to contact when you spot suspicious illegal wildlife trade activities.
I feel proud about that.
Cross generation inspiration
Sharing knowledge about wildlife to the younger generation makes me feel useful. The most important and meaningful thing about my job is to share awareness about conservation and the importance of wildlife.
If we talk about tree, we’re not talking about just the leaf, but also the roots.
If they are well prepared from an early age, they will carry knowledge about the conservation and wildlife into the future.
‘Staying silent won’t change anything’
Our Earth is aging and overpopulated. Screaming loudly might not help, but staying silent also will not change anything. Women can raise our voices more and make Earth a better place.
I have one big message for young woman: be brave. Don’t be scared to start working for conservation. You need to encourage yourself to take the first steps because the first step is very important. It’s not as scary as you think.”
Empowering rangers
Although women play a vital role in managing natural resources and are disproportionally affected by biodiversity loss, they are often excluded from decision-making and leadership opportunities, so the UN Development Programme (UNDP) launched a series of innovative projects in the Asia-Pacific region to change that.
Women rangers are also working to protect land and empower their communities in China, India, Viet Nam, and other countries.
In line with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, these conservation projects are helping to combat climate change, empower women, and help them to transform their communities.
About The Study: This case control study found that for female individuals, the loss of abortion rights was associated with a 10% increase in prevalence of mental distress relative to the mean over the three months after the Supreme Court of the U.S. decision. Restricting legal abortion access may be associated with disproportionate outcomes among individuals of lower socioeconomic status and in medically underserved areas, who may experience greater economic and mental health burdens of having unwanted pregnancies due to increased travel costs of obtaining abortions.
Authors: Muzhe Yang, Ph.D., of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, is the corresponding author.
Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.
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About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is an online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication.
JAMA – Journal of the American Medical Association
Newswise — ROCHESTER, Minnesota — A remoção cirúrgica de ambos os ovários está associada a um risco aumentado de Doença de Parkinson e parkinsonismo em mulheres com menos de 43 anos, conforme relatam os pesquisadores da Mayo Clinic na revista médica JAMA Network Open.
Usando dados de registros de saúde do Rochester Epidemiology Project, o estudo incluiu 2.750 mulheres que foram submetidas a cirurgia para remover ambos os ovários (um procedimento chamado ooforectomia bilateral) e 2.749 que não passaram pela cirurgia. As razões para a cirurgia foram uma condição benigna (não cancerosa), como endometriose, cisto ou outro motivo, incluindo a cirurgia preventiva do câncer. Os pesquisadores descobriram que para cada 48 mulheres com menos de 43 anos no momento da cirurgia, uma mulher adicional desenvolveu a Doença de Parkinson em comparação com mulheres da mesma idade que não tiveram os ovários removidos.
A Doença de Parkinson é um distúrbio progressivo que afeta o sistema nervoso e as partes do corpo controladas pelos nervos. Os tremores são comuns, mas o distúrbio também pode causar rigidez ou lentidão dos movimentos. Os sintomas muitas vezes são acompanhados por demência, distúrbios do sono e problemas intestinais e da bexiga. Parkinsonismo é um termo geral para lentidão dos movimentos, juntamente com rigidez, tremores ou perda de equilíbrio.
A Doença de Parkinson se manifesta comumente quase duas vezes mais em homens do que em mulheres na população em geral, sugerindo que fatores de sexo ou gênero desempenham um papel no seu desenvolvimento. Para as mulheres, os ovários são a principal fonte do hormônio estrogênio. A remoção cirúrgica dos ovários de uma mulher pode ser recomendada devido ao câncer, mutações genéticas e outras condições. Quando os ovários de uma mulher são removidos cirurgicamente antes que ela entre na menopausa, essa fonte de estrogênio e outros hormônios é perdida e a remoção causa uma disfunção endócrina abrupta.
As descobertas confirmam um estudo de 2008 que sugeriu que a falta de estrogênio causada pela remoção de ambos os ovários em mulheres mais jovens pode estar associada a um risco aumentado da Doença de Parkinson e do parkinsonismo. Os resultados comprovam as diretrizes atuais de que a remoção de ambos os ovários não deve ser realizada para prevenir o câncer de ovário em mulheres com risco médio de câncer, diz o Dr. Walter Rocca, neurologista e epidemiologista da Mayo Clinic e investigador principal do estudo.
Para mulheres que carregam uma variante genética de alto risco para câncer de ovário, a remoção do ovário antes da menopausa pode ser indicada, mas as mulheres devem receber terapia de estrogênio após a cirurgia até os 50 ou 51 anos, idade aproximada da menopausa espontânea, diz ele.
“Hoje em dia, não é recomendado o uso de terapia com estrogênio para a prevenção de demência ou parkinsonismo após a menopausa espontânea para mulheres com idade entre 46 e 55 anos”, diz o Dr. Rocca. “Mas este estudo e estudos anteriores sugerem que a terapia com estrogênio é importante em mulheres cujos ovários foram removidos cirurgicamente antes dos 46 anos. Mulheres que passaram pela menopausa induzida cirurgicamente antes dos 40 anos são particularmente vulneráveis.”
A pesquisa foi financiada em parte pelo National Institute on Aging (Instituto Nacional do Envelhecimento) dos National Institutes of Health. Uma lista completa de autores e afiliações pode ser encontrada no artigo de pesquisa.
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Sobre a Mayo Clinic A Mayo Clinic é uma organização sem fins lucrativos comprometida com a inovação na prática clínica, educação e pesquisa, fornecendo compaixão, conhecimento e respostas para todos que precisam de cura. Visite a Rede de Notícias da Mayo Clinic para obter outras notícias da Mayo Clinic.
Sex trafficking is an inevitable byproduct of the so-called “sex industry” in the same way lung cancer is an inevitable byproduct of the tobacco industry. As long as it remains legal for men to buy sex in prosperous countries, a large number of women and girls will continue to be victimised by traffickers across the world and especially in contexts where conflict, extreme poverty and other crises accentuate existing vulnerabilities.
Of course, those profiting from prostitution and their supporters argue otherwise, accusing feminist abolitionists like myself of exaggerating the number of trafficking victims in the industry or the extent of the abuse and violence they endure. They claim prostitution is no different from any other type of work, and say we are trying to criminalise “sex workers” or make them less safe. They argue the crime of sex trafficking is not necessarily tied to the “legal” sex trade and thus should be tackled as a separate problem.
They are wrong.
Through my decades of feminist activism and investigative journalism, I’ve seen over and over again how prostitution and trafficking are the two sides of the same coin. We cannot end trafficking while supporting an industry built upon the subjugation and abuse of women and girls.
I came face to face with the heinous crime of sex trafficking for the first time in Albania in 1998. Trying to recover from a bloody civil war while in a state of perpetual economic crisis, the Balkan country was a traffickers’ paradise. Large numbers of women and girls were being transported to Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom to “work” in the sex industry. Criminal gangs and “entrepreneurs” were treating vulnerable girls and women as “merchandise” and selling them to pimps and brothel owners. These women, often wrongly perceived as willing participants in the trade, had no agency or easy way out of their violent reality.
Little has changed in the two decades since. Despite international organisations and governments throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at the problem, sex trafficking today remains as prevalent as it was in 1998. Countless women and girls in war-torn Ukraine and other centres of conflict and crisis across the world are being coerced or forced into the sex trade by traffickers taking advantage of their extreme vulnerability.
So why are the huge funds allocated by governments and NGOs proving insufficient to end this shameful practice?
One likely reason, as is often the case with crimes that overwhelmingly target women such as domestic violence or rape, is police ineptitude.
Take the case of Nuruzzaman Shahin in the UK.
In January this year, 40-year-old Shahin was sentenced to 31 years in prison for multiple counts of rape, sexual assault, and “controlling prostitution for gain”.
The court heard he trawled online employment websites for migrant women who were looking for work in the UK and contacted them in an effort to recruit them into so-called “escort work”, promising up to 500 pounds ($613) a day. He then went on to rape and assault them, steal their ID documents, and pressure them into selling sex for his gain.
Police said Shahin was arrested for the first time in 2018, but a decision was made to take no further action due to “insufficient evidence”. This, despite several women bravely coming forward to say he trafficked them into prostitution and authorities admitting that he had been under their radar for suspected human trafficking for at least a decade. Only a review of his case by specialist anti-trafficking agents in 2020 led to him being rearrested, charged and convicted.
Two of the women abused by Shahin, Audrey and Sam (not their real names), told me that they had to fight for more than two years to convince the police to take their accusations seriously and investigate the case properly. They are now considering taking legal action against the criminal justice agencies that failed them with the help of legal charity Centre for Women’s Justice.
The incompetence of the police and other agencies, however, is just one of the many reasons for the continued prevalence of sex trafficking in the UK and beyond.
Another, and perhaps the most important, reason why traffickers and abusers like Shahin get to avoid accountability is the widely held belief – shared even by some leading United Nations agencies – that while sex trafficking is a terrible human rights abuse, prostitution is a line of work like any other.
Sex trafficking is defined as the act of transporting people from one country or area to another for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Under international law, there is no need for the crossing of national borders for an act to be considered sex trafficking. Any “pimping” – or controlling of prostitution – that involves the movement of “merchandise” from one place to another is sex trafficking under law and should be treated as such.
Nevertheless, these days cases of sex trafficking within a country’s borders often get ignored as they are perceived as “just prostitution”. People hold the belief that domestic prostitution and “sex trafficking” are completely different concepts and practices, despite many brothels across Europe being full of women trafficked from countries such as Romania and Thailand. Furthermore, in countries like Germany, where the sex trade is fully legalised, much of the human trafficking is sanitised as “migration for sex work”, making it even more difficult for trafficked women and girls to be heard and find help.
So what is the solution?
Like many other feminists who wish to see an end to the buying and selling of women’s bodies, I support what is known as the “Nordic Model“. Under this approach to prostitution, buying or attempted buying of sex is criminalised while selling of sex is decriminalised. Additionally, support is available to those wishing to exit prostitution.
The Nordic Model has been in place in Sweden since 1999, and has subsequently been implemented in Norway, France, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Canada and Israel with significant success. It has proved itself to be effective in reducing the trafficking of women and the sexual exploitation of children in different countries and social contexts. In contrast, a 2013 study from the London School of Economics that looked at data from 150 countries found that legalisation and blanket decriminalisation of the sex trade serves to expand the prostitution market and increase the demand for trafficked women.
Only by addressing the root causes of prostitution will we be able to reduce trafficking. If prostitution remains a thriving business in many countries across the world, and especially in prosperous countries into which trafficked women are traditionally transported, the number of trafficking victims will only increase.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Newswise — يرتبط الاستئصال الجراحي للمبيضين بزيادة خطر الإصابة بداء باركنسون والباركنسونية لدى النساء الأصغر من 43 عامًا، بحسب ما نشره باحثو مايو كلينك في مجلةجاما نتورك اوبن.
باستخدام بيانات السجل الصحي لمشروع علم الأوبئة في روتشستر، ضمت الدراسة 2,750 امرأة خضعن لجراحة استئصال المبيضين، وهي إجراء طبي يعرف باسم الاستئصال الثنائي للمبيض، و2,749 امرأة لم يخضعن لها. وكان سبب إجراء الجراحة هو وجود حالة مرضية حميدة (غير سرطانية) – مثل: الانتباذ البطاني الرحمي، أو التكيسات، أو غيرها من الحالات – أو للوقاية من السرطان. لقد وجد الباحثون أنه لكل 48 امرأة أجرت الجراحة في عمر أصغر من 43 عامًا، أُصيبت امرأة واحدة بداء باركنسون، مقارنة بالنساء في نفس العمر اللاتي لم يخضعن لاستئصال المبيضين.
داء باركنسون هو اضطراب يتفاقم تدريجيًا ويؤثر على الجهاز العصبي وأجزاء الجسم التي تتحكم بها الأعصاب. الرُعاش هو أحد الأعراض الشائعة لهذا الاضطراب، لكنه قد يسبب أيضًا التيبّس وتباطؤ الحركة. وعادة ما يصاحبه الخَرَف، واضطرابات النوم، ومشكلات الأمعاء والمثانة. الباركنسونية هو مصطلح عام يصف تباطؤ الحركة مع التيبّس أو الرُعاش أو فقدان التوازن.
يُصاب الرجال بداء باركنسون أكثر من النساء بمقدار الضعفين بين عموم السكان، مما يرجح أن العوامل المتعلقة بجنس الشخص تلعب دورًا في الإصابة. الـمِبيَضان هما المصدر الأساسي لهرمون الإستروجين لدى السيدات. وقد يُوصى بإجراء استئصال جراحي للـمبيضين بسبب السرطان والطفرات الجينية وغيرها من الحالات المرضية. وعندما يُستأصل الـمِبيَضان قبل بلوغ المرأة مرحلة انقطاع الطمث، فإنها بذلك تفقد المصدر الرئيسي لهرمون الإستروجين وغيره من الهرمونات، مما يسبب خللًا وظيفيًا مفاجئًا في الغدد الصماء.
تؤكد نتائج هذه الدراسة ما توصلت إليه دراسة أُجريت في 2008 تشير إلى أن نقص الإستروجين الناتج عن استئصال المبيضين لدى النساء الأصغر سنًا قد يرتبط بزيادة خطر الإصابة بداء باركنسون والباركنسونية. تدعم هذه النتائج التوجيهات الحالية بخصوص عدم جواز استئصال المبيضين للوقاية من سرطان المبيضين لدى النساء المعرضات لخطر متوسط للإصابة بالسرطان، بحسب ما أفاد به والتر روكا، دكتور الطب، وطبيب الأعصاب والأوبئة في مايو كلينك والمؤلف الأول لهذه الدراسة.
وأضاف: بالنسبة للنساء اللاتي يحملنَ متغيرًا جينيًا مرتفع الخطورة للإصابة بسرطان المبيضين، فقد يُنصح باستئصال المبيضين قبل بلوغ مرحلة انقطاع الطمث، ولكن يجب أن تتلقى تلك النساء علاج بهرمون الإستروجين بعد إجراء الجراحة حتى بلوغ سن 50 أو 51 عامًا، وهو العمر التقريبي لحدوث انقطاع الطمث التلقائي.
يقول دكتور روكا: “إلى يومنا هذا، لا يُنصح باستعمال علاج بهرمون الإستروجين للوقاية من الخَرَف أو الباركنسونية بعد انقطاع الطمث التلقائي لدى النساء بين 46 و55 عامًا”. ”لكن تشير هذه الدراسة والدراسات السابقة إلى ضرورة إعطاء علاج بهرمون الإستروجين للنساء دون سن 46 عاما اللاتي خضعن لجراحة استئصال المبيضين. فالنساء الأكثر عرضة للخطر هن من تعرضن لانقطاع الطمث قبل بلوغ 40 عامًا بسبب جراحة استئصال المبيضين”.
موَّل المعهد الوطني للشيخوخة (المعاهد الوطنية للصحة) هذه الدراسة بشكل جزئي. للحصول على القائمة الكاملة للمؤلفين وانتماءاتهم المؤسسية، راجع الورقة البحثية.
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نبذة عن مايو كلينك مايو كلينك هي مؤسسة غير ربحية تلتزم بالابتكار في الممارسات السريرية والتعليم والبحث وتوفير التعاطف والخبرة لكل مَن يحتاج إلى الاستشفاء والرد على استفساراته. لمعرفة المزيد من أخبار مايو كلينك، تفضَّل بزيارة شبكة مايو كلينك الإخبارية.
Released during Women’s History Month, the report investigates and surfaces how women see the work they do, both in their careers and in the home, and how society perceives that work. The report addresses how brands need to do a better job at understanding the context of women’s lives, and demonstrates that while gaps persist, women are gaining influence and mobilizing to create their own futures.
“Women are in crisis – but that’s not new or news – because that’s how it’s been for decades. theSkimm’s State of Women initiative is our proof point. Our goal is to highlight not just what hasn’t been working for women, but also – and more importantly – how the systems in place were never designed to support women in the first place,” said theSkimm’s co-founders and co-CEOs, Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg.
“We’re not going to sit back and continue to watch it happen,” they continued. “Instead, this initiative gives perspective on how the mindset of women has shifted. And as the go-to resource for millennial women, theSkimm is right there with her, offering her the information she needs to not just clear her plate but to redesign the systems to make sure she is seen, heard and valued in every aspect of her life.”
The research, which is based on two studies and comprised 4,500 women, has been featured on the Today Show and reveals the harsh realities that women continue to face.
74% say, “society treats women like second-class citizens” and the “deck is stacked against women.”
79% say, “I am concerned with the social expectations around unpaid labor/mental load that women are responsible for.”
65% say, “new legislation and policies that are being passed do not advance women’s rights.”
“Recognizing the burden on women and equity gaps is not enough; it’s time to take fundamental action steps to forge a more prosperous future together,” Libby Rodney, chief strategy officer at The Harris Poll Thought Leadership and Futures Practice, said. “The data tells us that women see a system working against their best interests, from healthcare to policy changes to support structures.”
“However, women are not going quietly into the night,” Rodney said. According to the report, women across the U.S. are mobilizing, rewriting rules, and creating momentum around social change to flip inequities and build a better future together.
Here are some of the highlights of how women are making or planning to make changes:
89% are planning to redesign their lives the way they want to.
87% have or want to create more sources of financial stability, with 60% adding a side hustle, shifting to a higher-earning career, or advocating for a promotion.
65% (or 74% among Black women) have gotten involved, or plan to, in national politics.
76% are more active, or want to get more involved, in their local community at schools, local politics, and small businesses.
“Instead of resignation, they are exhibiting agency, and a willingness to make tough choices to secure their own futures,” Abbey Lunney, managing director at The Harris Poll Thought Leadership and Futures Practice, said. “This year alone, women have reached new highs around representation within Congress, the C-Suite, on boards, and as entrepreneurs. In the next seven years, women are projected to control up to $30 trillion in financial assets. And there is still a lot of work to do!”
How can executives, policymakers, and employers offer women meaningful support and opportunity? By being more candid and offering practical and functional support, doubling down on long-term commitments, and putting the spotlight on women’s issues and women-owned businesses.
“Women are fighting back to build a new and better future,” Rodney said. “Most women (83% in the report) want to lead the way by writing the next chapter of what it is like to be a woman in America.”
“The study shows that we all need to be a part of redesigning the future together,” Lunney said. “Now is the time to listen to women and fight with them to get the changes that need to be made.”
You can subscribe to the Daily Skimm newsletter for more information on the State of Women and to The Harris Poll Thought Leadership and Futures Practice newsletter, “The Next Big Think,” at TheNextBigThink.
About theSkimm
theSkimm is a digital media company dedicated to succinctly giving women the information they need to make confident decisions. We’ve made it our mission to help you live smarter.
Every day we’re breaking down the news, trends, policies, and politics that impact women so that they can navigate their daily lives and futures – from managing their paychecks to casting their ballots – with confidence. We provide our dedicated audience of millions with reliable, non-partisan, information, informing and empowering them while fitting into their daily routines.
Since disrupting the media landscape and defining a new category a decade ago, theSkimm has become a trusted source for its audience of millions by seamlessly integrating into their existing routines, fundamentally changing the way they consume news and make decisions. Today theSkimm ecosystem includes the Daily Skimm; the Daily Skimm: Weekend; Skimm Money and Skimm Your Life newsletters; the “9 to 5ish with theSkimm” podcast; theSkimm mobile app; and Skimm Studios, which creates innovative in-house video and audio content. theSkimm’s first book, How to Skimm Your Life, debuted at #1 on The New York Times Best Seller list. Through Skimm Impact, theSkimm’s purpose-driven platform, the company is proud to support get-out-the-vote efforts with Skimm Your Ballot, which has spurred over 2 million voting-related actions across the last three election cycles, and its #ShowUsYourLeave movement, creating transparency and change for Paid Family Leave in the U.S.
About The Harris Poll
The Harris Poll is one of the longest-running surveys in the U.S., tracking public opinion, motivations, and social sentiment since 1963, and is now part of Harris Insights & Analytics, a global consulting and market research firm that delivers social intelligence for transformational times. We work with clients in three primary areas: building 21st-century corporate reputation, crafting brand strategy and performance tracking, and earning organic media through public relations research. Our mission is to provide insights and guidance to help leaders make the best decisions possible. To learn more, please visit www.theharrispoll.com.
New research conducted by The Harris Poll shows women see the need to create their own solutions for financial and emotional well-being.
NEW YORK, March 22, 2023 (Newswire.com)
– Women believe society expects too much from them while not respecting them enough — but are taking steps to change that. That is the central finding of research conducted by The Harris Poll Thought Leadership and Futures Practice on behalf of theSkimm’s new State of Women Report 2023.
Released during Women’s History Month, the report investigates and surfaces how women see the work they do, both in their careers and in the home, and how society perceives that work. The report addresses how brands need to do a better job of understanding the context of women’s lives, and demonstrates that while gaps persist, women are gaining influence and mobilizing to create their own futures.
The research, which is based on two studies and comprised 4,500 women, has been featured on the Today Show and reveals the harsh realities that women continue to face.
74% say that “society treats women like second-class citizens” and the “deck is stacked against women.”
79% say “I am concerned with the social expectations around unpaid labor/mental load that women are responsible for.”
65% say “new legislation and policies that are being passed do not advance women’s rights.”
“Recognizing the burden on women and equity gaps is not enough; it’s time to take fundamental action steps to forge a more prosperous future together,” Libby Rodney, chief strategy officer at The Harris Poll Thought Leadership and Futures Practice, said. “The data tells us that women see a system working against their best interests, from health care to policy changes to support structures.
“However, women are not going quietly into the night.” According to the report, women across the U.S. are mobilizing, rewriting rules, and creating momentum around social change to flip inequities and build a better future together.
Here are some of the highlights of how women are making or planning to make changes:
89% are planning to redesign their lives the way they want to.
87% have or want to create more sources of financial stability, with 60% adding a side hustle, shifting to a higher-earning career or advocating for a promotion.
65% (or 74% among Black women) have gotten involved, or plan to, in national politics.
76% are more active, or want to get more involved, in their local community at schools, local politics, and small businesses.
“Instead of resignation, they are exhibiting agency and a willingness to make tough choices to secure their own futures,” Abbey Lunney, managing director at The Harris Poll Thought Leadership and Futures Practice, said. “This year alone, women have reached new highs around representation within Congress, the C-Suite, on boards, and as entrepreneurs. In the next seven years, women are projected to control up to $30 trillion in financial assets. And there is still a lot of work to do.”
How can executives, policymakers, and employers offer women meaningful support and opportunity? By being more candid and offering practical and functional support, doubling down on long-term commitments, and putting the spotlight on women’s issues and women-owned businesses.
“Women are fighting back to build a new and better future,” Rodney said. “Most women (83% in the report) want to lead the way by writing the next chapter of what it is like to be a woman in America.”
“The study shows that we all need to be a part of redesigning the future together,” Lunney said. “Now is the time to listen to women and fight with them to get the changes that need to be made.”
You can subscribe to The Harris Poll Thought Leadership and Futures Practice newsletter “The Next Big Think” at TheNextBigThink.
About The Harris Poll
The Harris Poll is one of the longest-running surveys in the U.S., tracking public opinion, motivations, and social sentiment since 1963, and is now part of Harris Insights & Analytics, a global consulting and market research firm that delivers social intelligence for transformational times. We work with clients in three primary areas: building 21st-century corporate reputation, crafting brand strategy and performance tracking, and earning organic media through public relations research. Our mission is to provide insights and guidance to help leaders make the best decisions possible. To learn more, please visit www.theharrispoll.com.
March 17, 2023 – Women may have their own reasons now to adapt the ever-popular Mediterranean diet: It appears to lower the risks of heart disease and death in women.
Those who closely followed a Mediterranean diet had a 24% lower risk of heart disease and 23% lower risk of death over time compared with those following other kinds of diets. The diet places an emphasis on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, seafood, lean protein, and healthy fats such as olive oil and nuts.
“The Mediterranean diet is known for its health benefits, especially for heart health, but most studies and research into diet and heart disease are done primarily in men,” said lead author Anushriya Pant, a PhD candidate at the University of Australia’s Westmead Applied Research Centre.
“In medical research, there are sex disparities in how clinical trials are designed,” she said. “This creates large gaps in clinical data, which can potentially impact the development of health advice. Our work is a step towards addressing this gap.”
In the new report, published in the journal Heart, Pant and colleagues analyzed 16 studies published between 2006 and 2021 that included information on how closely people followed the Mediterranean diet and enrolled either all women or separated the outcomes by sex. The researchers excluded studies that referred to only certain components of the Mediterranean diet or combined it with other lifestyle-related factors.
The studies, which were mostly focused in the U.S. and Europe, included 722,495 adult women who didn’t have previous reports of heart disease and were monitored for an average of 12.5 years for their heart health.
Overall, those who more closely followed a Mediterranean diet were less likely to have cardiovascular disease — including heart failure, heart attacks, and other major adverse cardiovascular events — as well as death. Although the risk of stroke was also lower, it wasn’t considered statistically significant.
Further analyses showed similar reductions in risk for women of different ethnicities who followed the Mediterranean diet. Women of European descent had a 24% lower risk of heart disease, and women of non-European descent (Asian, Native Hawaiian, and African American) had a 21% lower risk.
The researcherscall for more sex-specific research around heart disease, including specific risk factors linked to menopause, pregnancy-related concerns such as pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes, and autoimmune diseases that are more prominent among women, such as systemic lupus.
Future studies should also explore the reasons why the Mediterranean diet is linked with lower heart disease and death, they said. The diet may reduce inflammation, boost antioxidants, and benefit the gut microbiome. It’s also rich in beneficial nutrients such as polyphenols (organic compounds found in some vegetables and fruit), nitrates, and omega-3 fatty acids, and it’s high in fiber and low in glycemic load.
“What we eat today has important health implications for our cardiometabolic health for years to come,” said Samia Mora, MD, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Lipid Metabolomics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Mora, who wasn’t involved with this study, has researched the links between the Mediterranean diet and heart health. She and colleagues have found that women who follow the diet are more likely to have lower inflammation, insulin resistance, body mass index, and blood pressure.
“Women are often the primary meal preparers, and their dietary habits influence other family members — in particular children,” she said. “It was striking to see the results, with about one-quarter reduction in fatal and nonfatal cardiovascular events. This is very similar to the benefit that we see with statin therapy, a commonly used medication to lower cholesterol.”
FRIDAY, March 17, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Hair loss can be devastating for women, but the condition can also signal additional health problems.
An American Academy of Dermatology expert offers information about the types of hair loss seen in women with darker skin tones, common types of medical conditions associated with hair loss and treatment options.
“Research shows that women who experience hair loss can also have other medical conditions like diabetes, acne and breast cancer,” said Dr. Valerie Callender, professor of dermatology at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C.
“By recognizing the signs of hair loss and seeing your dermatologist as soon as possible, you may be able to limit the progression, hold on to the hair you have, and discover any other underlying medical conditions you may have,” she said in an academy news release.
One condition — central centrifugal cicatricial alopecia (CCCA) — causes hair loss in the center of the scalp. This is the most common type of hair loss seen in women with darker skin tones, affecting nearly 15% of Black women.
Early detection is important because CCCA can cause scarring by destroying hair follicles. Once the hair follicle scars completely, regrowth becomes difficult and hair loss can be permanent.
A dermatologist can diagnose this condition and work on a treatment plan, which can include antibiotics, topical steroid medication or corticosteroid injections, offering pain relief and freedom from itching. It can also prevent scarring from getting worse.
Breast cancer, high cholesterol, diabetes and high blood pressure are common among Black women with CCCA, Callender said. A dermatologist may be able to provide a woman with information on whether the hair loss may be symptom of another disease.
Female pattern hair loss is also common, affecting millions of women of all skin tones.
With this hereditary condition, the hair thins mainly on the top of the scalp. It usually starts with a widening of the center hair part. Many women with female pattern hair loss also have acne because of increased hormones, Callender said. Menopause and high blood pressure are also common as female pattern hair loss progresses.
A possible treatment for this is minoxidil, which can reduce hair loss, stimulate hair growth and strengthen existing strands of hair. You can buy products containing this at the drug store, but a dermatologist may be able to provide you with a higher dosage available with a prescription.
Hairstyles that tightly pull the hair can cause traction alopecia, which is common in women with darker skin tones due to hair styling.
“One of the first things I ask my patients who have a history of braids is if it hurts when their hair is braided,” Callender said. “Getting your hair done shouldn’t hurt, so if they have pain, it’s an indicator that they could be developing traction alopecia.”
A person can still maintain a sense of style, but with a looser ‘do or by avoiding frequent use of styles that pull hair.
Ingredients in hair products are also important, Callender said. While women with darker skin tones, particularly those of African descent, have hair that tends to be coarse, dry and fragile, some shampoos for dandruff and other scalp disorders can further dry out hair, leading to breakage. Shampoos and hair products should contain ingredients that moisturize hair such as vitamins A and E, jojoba oil and shea butter.
“When treatments are not effective to prevent hair loss, a permanent solution is to consider a hair transplant, which creates natural-looking results,” Callender said. “Hair transplants are most effective in patients with traction alopecia and female pattern hair loss. While patients with CCCA aren’t always ideal candidates for a hair transplant due to scarring, it is possible for them to have success. A board-certified dermatologist can determine if a hair transplant is the right option.”
Callender is scheduled to make a presentation on hair loss at a meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology, in New Orleans, March 17-21.
More information
The Journal of the American Medical Association has more on common causes of hair loss.
SOURCE: American Academy of Dermatology, news release, March 17, 2023
Women in the health and care sector face a larger gender pay gap than in other economic sectors, earning on average of 24 per cent less than peers who are men, according to a joint report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Credit: ILOGENEVA (ILO News)
Opinion by Roopa Dhatt, Ebere Okereke (washington dc / london)
Inter Press Service
WASHINGTON DC / LONDON, Mar 16 (IPS) – Women health workers are more than two thirds of the health workforce and represent 90% of the world’s frontline health workers, yet hold less than a quarter of senior leadership roles – a situation which is unfair and a significant risk for global health security.
Despite five years of ad hoc commitments, our new report The State of Women and Leadership in Global Health shows few and isolated gains, while overall progress on women’s representation in global health governance has remained largely unchanged.
The report, launched on March 16, assessed global data together with deep dives into country case studies from India, Nigeria and Kenya. It found that women lost significant ground in health leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Women in Global Health study calculated that 85% of 115 national COVID-19 task forces had majority male membership. At global level, during the World Health Organisation’s Executive Board meeting in January 2022 just 6% of government delegations were led by women (down from a high point of 32% in 2020).
It appears that during emergencies like the pandemic, outdated gender stereotypes resurface with men seen as ‘natural leaders’.
A key and disturbing finding in the report was that women belonging to a socially marginalized race, class, caste, age, ability, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity or with migrant status, face far greater barriers to accessing and retaining formal leadership positions in health.
Without women from diverse backgrounds in decision-making positions, health programs lack insight and professional experience from the women health workers who largely deliver the health systems in their countries.
Expanding the representation of diverse leaders in health is not just a matter of fairness, it also contributes to better decision-making by bringing in a wider range of knowledge, talent and perspectives.
Further, the report shows there is a ‘broken pipeline’ between women working in national health systems and those working in global health. As long as men are the majority of health leaders at national level and systemic bias against women continues, the global health leadership pipeline will continue to funnel more men into positions with global decision-making power.
The issues women face in national health systems are then reproduced at the global level where women are excluded from political processes and marginalized from the most senior appointments.
A deep dive of case studies in India, Nigeria and Kenya confirms that women are held back from health leadership by cultural gender norms, discrimination and ineffectual policies which don’t redress historic inequalities.
The similarities in the barriers faced by women health workers from very different socio-economic and cultural contexts are marked, indicating widespread systemic bias right across the global health workforce.
The consequences of locking women out of leadership represents a moral and justice issue, and also a strategic loss to the health sector. Through the pandemic, we saw how safe maternity and sexual and reproductive health services were deprioritized and removed from essential services in some countries, with catastrophic consequences for women and girls.
We saw women health workers unpaid or underpaid, and we saw dangerous conditions escalate as community health workers were sent to enforce lockdown, do contact tracing or provide services in unsafe conditions with no forethought given to providing security.
The findings of our report show that systemic change goes beyond numbers in gender parity leadership. What is needed is a transformative framework for action involving all genders from institutional, to national and global level.
Recommendations to drive transformative approaches include:
Men must ‘lean out’ and become visible role models in challenging stereotypes to make way for qualified women
Normalization of paternity leave to shift gender norms and reduce the burden of care of women
Governments taking targeted actions to fast track the number of diverse women in health leadership roles through quotas and all-women shortlists, particularly for senior global health leadership roles that have never been held by a woman
Institutions must be intentional about creating and maintaining a pipeline for women to move into leadership
Measurable actions such as mentorship, shadowing / pairing and deputizing opportunities should be created and monitored to ensure women are visible for promotion opportunities
A zero tolerance of discrimination towards pregnancy
Supported flexible working options for all parents and carers
Investing in women is not only the right thing to do, but it also makes good business sense. When we get it right, we can unlock a “triple gender dividend in health” that includes more resilient health systems, improved economic welfare for families and communities, and progress towards gender equality.
The lessons of the pandemic have taught us much about the value of the health workforce and even more about the value of health workers. They are mostly women. It’s time for them to take their rightful roles in leadership.
Dr Roopa Dhatt is Executive Director and Co-Founder Women in Global Health, Washington, DC and Dr Ebere Okereke is Snr Health Adviser Tony Blair Institute London & incoming CEO Africa Public Health Foundation, Nairobi
Newswise — The sex hormone estrogen has a negative impact on heartbeat regulation, according to an experimental study from Linköping University, Sweden, published in Science Advances. Estrogen impact seems to interact with hereditary changes causing a heart disease disturbing the heart’s rhythm, while other endogenous substances may have a protecting effect.
In a lifetime, the heart beats around 2.5 billion times. Each heartbeat is triggered by an electrical impulse that causes the heart muscle to contract in a very well-coordinated movement. The heart’s electrical activity is regulated by small pores, ion channels, that go through the cell’s membranes and regulate the flow of electrically charged ions in and out of the cell. Some ion channels act as an accelerator and others as a brake. Together, they regulate every heartbeat throughout life.
Diseases causing an abnormal heart rhythm may, in some cases, be deadly. Long QT syndrome, LQTS, is one such disease. In LQTS patients, the heart takes longer than normal to finish every heartbeat. This syndrome is most often due to a congenital hereditary change, or mutation, affecting one of the heart’s ion channels.
“We’re trying to understand which substances in the body impact the function of the ion channels. If we could figure out how this regulation works, maybe we can understand why some individuals are more protected and others are hit harder,” says Sara Liin, associate professor in the Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences at Linköping University, LiU.
In this study, the researchers have taken an interest in possible effects of the sex hormone estrogen. They came up with this idea when asked by heart specialists why women are not only more often affected than men, but also more severely affected, by certain hereditary diseases causing an abnormal heart rhythm, also known as arrhythmia. This in light of the fact that women are generally seen as having better protection against cardiovascular diseases. Could it have anything to do with women having more estrogen than men?
In their study, the researchers studied the type of ion channel most often mutated in LQTS, which is called Kv7.1/KCNE1. Reduced function of this ion channel is a risk factor increasing the risk of arrhythmia. To be able to understand estrogen impact on this specific ion channel, the researchers conducted experiments where they inserted the human variant of the ion channel into frogs’ eggs, which do not have this ion channel. The researchers added the most active form of the sex hormone estrogen, estradiol, and measured the ion channel function. It turned out that ion channel function was hampered by estrogen, which the researchers interpret as an indication that estrogen may increase the risk of certain types of arrhythmia. Other sex hormones had no effect.
The researchers also found out exactly which parts of the channel were impacted by estrogen. They further examined ion channel mutations found in families with hereditary arrhythmia syndromes. Some mutations led to high estrogen sensitivity, while others led to the ion channel completely losing estrogen sensitivity.
“We show that some hereditary mutations that reduce ion channel function seem to contribute to high estrogen sensitivity, so there could be two risk factors that interact especially in women carriers of these mutations. We believe that our study gives good reason to look closer at this in patients,” says Sara Liin.
The researchers point out that it is important to remember the many positive effects of estrogen, and that in women with a hereditary increased risk of LQTS, estrogen could possibly be a risk factor. LQTS is relatively rare, affecting around 1 in 2,500 people.
The LiU researchers recently published a study in The Lancet eBioMedicine where they conducted a similar study into a group of endogenous substances known as endocannabinoids. This study showed that endocannabinoids instead seemed to function as protective factors in LQTS. According to the researchers, the findings indicate that these factors may be important to study in humans, as this may lead to ways of increasing endocannabinoid levels to counteract arrhythmia.
The study was financed with support from, among others, the European Research Council, ERC, via the Horizon 2020 research programme.
March 14, 2023 – Jacqueline Theis, a Virginia-based optometrist, was an avid soccer player during her teens. In the course of her athletic career, she had several concussions that triggered severe headaches when she tried to read.
“I was told that I had migraines and I’d ‘get over them’ and that I was ‘complaining too much’ – comments that are unfortunately all too common for women to hear,” she says.
“After 6 years, I saw an optometrist who noticed that my eyes weren’t coordinating and thought this was due to the concussions,” she recounts. “She prescribed glasses and vision therapy, and my headaches went away.”
Theis was angry that her headaches had been minimized and her visual issues overlooked. “I had 20/20 vision, so it didn’t occur to anyone that I could be having eye problems,” she says.
‘Invisible’ and Neglected
Katherine Snedaker, a licensed clinical social worker, agrees that women’s concussions are often minimized or overlooked. She created and leads PINK Concussions, a nonprofit group focused on concussions in women.
She says almost all of the previous concussion research has used male lab animals and men as subjects, although concussions are common in women too. And while people think of concussions in women as being sports-related injuries, PINK Concussions’ mission includes shining a spotlight on accidents, military service injuries, and domestic violence.
Over the past 5 years, “we’ve been able to raise awareness of brain injuries in female athletes and women veterans, but the far greater number of repetitive brain injuries are still hidden and endured by the invisible women who suffer intimate partner violence in every social and economic group of society,” she says.
“Concussions affect women and men differently, so it’s important for clinicians, parents, and others to be aware of how concussions might present in females as well as males,” says Snedaker, who has had multiple concussions, two of which came from car accidents.
Hormonal Connection?
David Wang, MD, head team doctor at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT, says that when women and men compete in the same sports, women get concussions at higher rates than men. Their symptoms also tend to be more severe, and they often have more prolonged symptoms.
There are several theories as to why women are more vulnerable to concussions and often have more severe symptoms or poorer outcomes, says Wang, who is the director of Comprehensive Sports Medicine in Connecticut.
Some studies suggest that female hormones may play a role. For example, one study found that women at certain phases of their menstrual cycle had worse symptoms after their concussion. And women often notice changes in their menstrual patterns after a concussion.
But Wang believes the story is more complex. “Concussions shake the pituitary gland, which is located in the head,” he says. “The pituitary is responsible for regulating aspects of women’s hormones. Stress to the pituitary – whether due to the mechanical injury of the concussion or to emotional stress that can follow a concussion – may affect the menstrual cycle.”
This is supported by a new study. The researchers screened for hypopituitarism (low hormonal production by the pituitary) in 133 female athletes with a history of traumatic brain injury. The researchers found that the majority of women (66.2%) had abnormal pituitary screening blood test results. Certain hormones were too high, while others that were too low. Younger athletes and those with more symptoms had more pituitary hormone abnormalities.
Neck, Eyes, and Brain
Wang shared several other theories regarding women’s vulnerability to concussions.
“Women in general have weaker necks; and since the neck is weaker, the head accelerates more when it’s hit because the impact is more severe and violent,” he explains. Although this “isn’t the whole story, it is a contributing factor.”
Theis, who is affiliated with the Concussion Care Centre of Virginia, says there’s an “intimate relationship between eye movements, the brainstem, and the neck; and since women have weaker necks, compared to men, their eye movements are going to be more vulnerable to neck-related injuries.”
She says eye problems are also a little-known complication of whiplash as well. “The connection is in the brainstem and the neck.”
She says that the neck may not necessarily be painful, but eye pain or headaches can be “referred” pain from the neck.
Other theories include that women also may have different levels of inflammation, compared to men, Wang says. And concussions often target an area of the brain called the corpus callosum, which connects the right and left hemispheres. “This area receives the majority of the strain from a concussive blow, and that area is more robustly used by women than by men because females tend to use both hemispheres in process more than males do.”
Myths About Women
All the experts agree that there are common myths about the greater frequency of concussions in women and their more severe symptoms.
“Some people think women have more concussions because they complain more about symptoms, so they’re more likely to be diagnosed,” Wang says. “I don’t like to hear that, because it suggests that women are ‘complainers’ and also that female athletes are less competitive than male athletes, which simply isn’t true.”
Wang and his colleagues studied athletes and found that females were at least as likely as males to hide symptoms so as not to be taken out of the game. “In fact, some of the most driven people I’ve ever met are female athletes,” he says.
Snedaker recommends that women take their symptoms seriously. “I’ve spoken to countless women who said their concussion symptoms were dismissed by doctors or were told that they’re simply anxious.” she says.
So if you’ve had a blow to the head and your health care provider doesn’t do a thorough concussion workup, “it’s time to look for a different provider,” Snedaker advises.
Different Symptoms, Different Treatments?
Most of the symptoms of concussion – other than menstrual dysfunction – don’t differ between the sexes, according to Wang. “It’s not like a heart attack, where often, women actually have different symptoms than men – like nausea rather than chest or jaw pain,” he says.
Typical symptoms of concussion in both men and women include headaches, dizziness, blurry vision or other visual disturbances, agitation or cognitive changes, light and sound sensitivity, disorientation, nausea or vomiting, or feeling dazed.
Because concussions can affect the menstrual cycle, Snedaker encourages health care professionals to ask women who have had a concussion about their periods. “If there’s an issue, follow up with endocrine testing,” she recommends. And if you’ve had a concussion and notice changes in your periods, be sure to bring this up to your provider.
Men and women have similar “landmarks” and “rules” for returning to play or to any other activity, such as employment or academics. “We expect them to be without symptoms, and we put them through a graded return to activity,” Wang states.
But since women’s symptoms tend to last longer than those of men, “women need to be supported throughout that time,” Snedaker emphasizes. All too often “women are called ‘malingering’ or ‘mentally ill’ when they don’t recover as fast as men.”
Benson Musyoka rides his motorcycle from Kamboo health centre to transport vaccines to Yindalani village. Photo Joyce Chimbi/IPS
by Joyce Chimbi (nairobi)
Inter Press Service
NAIROBI, Mar 13 (IPS) – Up until 2019, nurses in three health facilities located in the semi-arid south-eastern Kenya region of Makueni County struggled to bring critical health services closer to a hard-to-reach population scattered across three remote, far-flung villages.
“Kamboo, Yindalani and Yiuma Mavui villages are located 17 and 28 kilometres away from Makindu sub-county hospital, and 10 and 22 kilometres away from the nearest electricity grid,” Benson Musyoka, the nurse in charge of Ndalani dispensary in Yindalani village tells IPS.
Without a cold chain capacity to store vital vaccines and drugs, health facilities records show vaccination coverage across these villages was well below 25 percent.
Babies were delivered at home because mothers could not raise 6 to 12 USDs to hire a boda boda or motorbike taxi, which is the only means of transportation in the area. Others could not reach the hospital in time to deliver.
“Every morning, I would collect vaccines at Makindu sub-county hospital and transport them inside a vaccine carrier box to Ndalani dispensary. Once the vaccines are inside the carrier box, they are only viable for up to six hours, at which point whatever doses will have remained unused must be returned to storage at Makindu sub-county hospital for refrigeration or thrown away,” Musyoka expounds.
In February 2019, a groundbreaking donation of a solar-powered freezer to the Kamboo health centre significantly improved availability and access to vaccinations as well as maternal health services across the three villages and surrounding areas.
Francis Muli, the nurse in charge of Kamboo health centre, tells IPS that without a fridge or freezer, “you cannot stock Oxytocin, and without Oxytocin, you cannot provide labour and delivery services.”
He says it would be extremely dangerous to do so because Oxytocin is injected into all mothers immediately after delivery to prevent postpartum haemorrhage. Oxytocin is also used to induce labour.
As recommended by the World Health Organization, Oxytocin is the gold standard for preventing postpartum haemorrhage and is central to Kenya’s ambitious goal to achieve zero preventable maternal deaths.
In 2017, the Ministry of Health identified sub-standard care in 9 out of 10 maternal deaths owing to postpartum haemorrhage. Overall, postpartum haemorrhage accounts for 25 percent of maternal deaths in this East African nation.
Usungu dispensary and Ndalani dispensary are each located 10 kilometres away from Kamboo health centre in different directions. Nurses in charge of the facilities no longer make the long journey of 28 kilometres to and another 28 kilometres from Makindu to collect and return unused vaccine doses on vaccination days.
“We collect vaccine doses from Makindu sub-county hospital at the beginning of the month and store them in the freezer at Kamboo health centre. The freezer is large enough to store thousands of various vaccine doses collected from the sub-county hospital for all three facilities,” says Antony Matali, the nurse in charge of Usungu dispensary in Yiuma Mavui village.
Two to three times a week, Matali and Musyoka collect doses of various vaccines, including all standard routine immunization vaccines, with the exception of Yellow Fever. The vaccines are transported to their respective dispensaries in a carrier box that can hold up to 500 doses of different vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccines. All three facilities have recorded significant improvement in immunization coverage from a low of 25 percent.
At Kamboo health centre, where the freezer is domiciled, records show measles immunization rate has surpassed the target of 100 percent to include additional clients outside the catchment population area of 4,560 people. Overall immunization coverage is at 95 percent, well above the government target of 90 percent.
At Ndalani dispensary, the immunization rate for measles has also surpassed the target of 100 percent as additional patients, or transit patients from four surrounding villages and neighbouring Kitui County, receive services at the dispensary. The overall vaccination rate for all standard vaccines is 50 to 65 percent.
In the Usungu dispensary, the vaccination rate for measles is at 75 percent, and for other vaccines, coverage is hovering at the 50 percent mark.
“Usungu and Ndalani have not reached the 90 percent mark because we suffer from both missed opportunities and dropouts. Missed opportunities are patients who drop by a facility seeking a service and find that it is not available at that very moment. Dropouts are those who feel inconvenienced if they do not find what they need in their subsequent visits, so they drop out along the way,” Musyoka explains.
A cold chain or storage facility such as the solar-powered freezer, Muli says, is the cornerstone of any primary health unit in cash-strapped rural settings, and all services related to mother and child are the pillars of any health facility. Without these services, he emphasizes, all you have is brick and mortar.
“At Usungu and Ndalani, we are currently not offering labour and delivery services because we do not have Oxytocin in the facility at all times due to lack of storage, and we cannot carry it around in the hope that a delivery will materialize that day due to the six-hour time limit,” Musyoka expounds.
Still, pregnant women receive the standard tetanus jabs and all other prenatal services, but close to the delivery period, Ndalani and Usungu refer the women to the Kamboo health centre and follow-up to ensure that they receive referred services. Facility records show zero infant and maternal mortality.
Annually, the Ministry of Health targets to vaccinate at least 1.5 million children against vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, polio, tuberculosis, diarrhoea and pneumonia. Currently, one in six children under one year does not complete their scheduled vaccines.
Only one in two children below two years have received the second jab of Measles-Rubella, and only one in three girls aged 10 have received two doses of the HPV vaccine which protects against cervical cancer.
Ongoing efforts are helping address these gaps. For instance, the HPV vaccine was introduced in Makueni in March 2021. Musyoka vaccinated 46 girls aged 10 years with the two doses of HPV vaccine in 2021, and another 17 girls received their first HPV dose in 2022 and are due for the second dose in November 2022.
Healthcare providers say the freezer has transformed the delivery of mother and child services in the area by bringing critical immunization services closer to a marginalized and highly vulnerable community.
Ndeye Rose Sarr When a girl starts to menstruate, that’s when the problems usually start. From the age of 10, she begins to be looked at as a potential bride for an older man. And if she has not yet undergone FGM, there will be those in her community who will want to make sure that she does.
The rate of FGM in The Gambia is around 76 per cent in the 14 to 49 year age range, and about 51 per cent for girls up to the age of 14. That means that, on average, every other young girl you see in The Gambia has undergone this mutilation, which involves altering their genitals by cutting the clitoris or labia.
This leads to health consequences later in life. When they give birth, they may encounter complications, and the chances of a stillbirth are higher. If the baby survives, they may end up with obstetric fistula, holes that develop between the vagina and the bladder, that make women urinate when they sit. This can lead women being excluded from their communities, and their husbands to leave them.
UNFPA
‘Women are the ones practicing FGM’
Women are the ones practicing FGM. It is usually a grandmother, the keeper of the tradition in the family. Gambians living abroad will even bring back their children to be subjected to FGM. And men will tell you that this is a “women’s thing.”
What we are looking to do is engage men and boys. We are in a society where decision makers are men; they are husbands, traditional leaders, religious leaders who will indicate what to do and what not to do in society.
We want every young man in this country, all the men, whether they are fathers, husbands or traditional leaders in their community, to say no to the practice. We have studies that show that, in countries where men have become involved, the rates have gone down.
UNFPA
Gambian schoolgirls learn about reproductive and menstrual health
UN News: How long, realistically, will it be before we can see the end of FGM in this country?
Ndeye Rose Sarr: FGM has actually been illegal since 2015. However, only two cases have been brought to justice since then, with no convictions.
There has to be enforcement of the law. And the willingness of the government to continue prosecuting and also helping us with increasing awareness of the problem is key.
We also need to engage at a community level. Rites of passage for girls are important, but we don’t have to go to the extreme of female genital mutilation. We can find innovative ways to create rites of passage, just as it is boys in this part of the world. It doesn’t have to be harmful, and it doesn’t have to be something that invades the bodily autonomy of the person.
Currently, it is even carried out on babies; you can’t tell me that a baby girl knows what she’s going through, and is able to consent.
UNFPA
Reusable sanitary pads produced at a UNFPA workshop in rural Gambia
UN News: Period poverty is also widespread. What can be done to address it?
Rose Ndeye Sarr: Yes, period poverty is an issue across The Gambia, but it’s acute in rural areas, where women are less likely to have access to sanitary pads.
Period poverty leads to girls skipping school for around five days every month because, if they don’t have access to adequate menstrual products, they worry about staining their clothes, and being shamed; that’s between 40 and 50 days in a school year.
Boys will therefore have an advantage because they will be attending school more often than the girls, who are more likely to drop out of education.
So, we developed a project in Basse, in the Upper River Region, to produce recyclable sanitary pads. This is a way of empowering young women in the community, who now have a secure job, learning new skills, and improving the menstrual hygiene of women and girls.
We go to schools to distribute the pads and, when we’re there, we take the opportunity to talk about bodily autonomy, and comprehensive health education, so that the girls know more about their bodies, what is happening to them, what is okay, what is not okay. I think we are making a difference in Basse.
We need to understand that there are girls in this world who don’t have access to menstrual health and hygiene and who don’t have access to menstrual products when they have their menstruation. And we need to put an end to that.
The 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (6-17 March) gets underway at UN headquarters in New York . Credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías
Opinion by Dana Abed (beirut)
Inter Press Service
The writer is Global Campaigns Strategist for Gender Rights and Justice at Oxfam International.
BEIRUT, Mar 10 (IPS) – This month, government and civil society organization representatives gathered in New York for the United Nations’ 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) to discuss technology as a tool to facilitate access to education for women and girls.
But what should have been discussed were the basic issues of gender equality in education. As more than 85% of the world is living under austerity, and with 70% of countries cutting funding to education services, access to education for women and girls is being devastated by the lack of public funding.
The gap between boys and girls when it comes to school enrolment continues to be major, and quite concerning. Data consistently shows – particularly in low- and middle- income countries – that girls from poor families are the children most likely to be, and remain, out of school.
And the cost of education is one of the main barriers for access – which raises the question of affordability when it comes to technological integration.
While technological innovation has the potential to support instruction and education governance, we cannot turn a blind eye to the reality of digital inequality, the possibility of increased fees, and the privatization of education.
That is on top of the existing risks that are associated with the use of technology, including online violence and abuse and the lack of digital protection for girls, further locking girls out of their rights to education.
Austerity measures, public funding cuts, and privatization severely limit the goal of universal education. In a report published last November, Oxfam found that austerity is a form of gender-based violence.
And during CSW67, we emphasized that access to public and quality education is fundamental to gender equality and the realization of the rights of women and girls.
Oxfam does not claim that austerity measures are designed to hurt women and girls, but as policy makers design those policies, they tend to ignore the specific needs of women and girls and turn a blind eye to the disproportionate impact that those policies have on our communities.
We’ve reached this conclusion by gathering evidence from around the world, which showed that governments do not prioritize the needs to women and girls. For instance, more than 54% of the countries planning to cut their social protection budget in 2023 have minimal or no maternity and child support.
In their misguided attempts to balance their books against a looming global economic crisis, governments are treating women and girls as expendable. Women, particularly those from marginalized racial, ethnic, caste, and age groups, are inherently discriminated against when it comes to economic and social opportunities and accessing available public resources. Additional cuts to inequality-combatting public services mean these groups are the hardest hit.
Cuts to both the public wage bill and public health and social protection services – measures that women and their families rely on for survival – mean that women and girls bear the brunt of this austerity because health, education, feeding the family, paying the bills, caring for children and elderly all fall most heavily onto them.
For example, cutting wages in the public work force – especially in sectors like health where women represent 90% of the workforce or education where they represent 64% of the workforce – will directly impact job security.
We must resist austerity and should instead be taxing the wealthiest corporations and people properly. A progressive tax on the world’s millionaires and billionaires could raise $1.1 trillion more than the savings that governments are currently planning to make through their austerity cuts.
With such funding, governments could adopt feminist budgeting across all sectors that put women and girls in all their diversity at the heart of policy making, including ensuring access to quality, and public education.
Feminist movements have for years pushed for bold alternatives to our neo-liberal, capital-oriented economies, and Oxfam raises its voice with them. The integration of technology in education must be looked at from an intersectional lens, taking into consideration barriers to access for girls and low- and middle-income countries, and should not come with an additional cost to the education bill.
We need to stand in solidarity with the women’s rights and feminist movements in demanding that our leaders stop peddling the gender-based violence of austerity as the solution and support more feminist progressive representation beyond identity politics.
We must resist creating societies that prioritize the needs of the most privileged at the expense of everyone else – and instead work to create communities and policies that reflect our diverse backgrounds and identities.
Newswise — COVID-19 has taken a relatively limited toll on the mental health of most people around the globe, according to a paper published today in the BMJ by a McGill University-led research team involving collaborators from McMaster University, the University of Toronto, and other institutions.
The team reviewed data from 137 studies in various languages involving 134 cohorts of people from around the world. Most of the studies were from high or middle-income countries, and about 75% of participants were adults and 25% were children and adolescents between the ages of 10-19.
To their surprise, the researchers found that despite the dramatic stories to the contrary, where changes in mental health symptoms were identified compared to before the pandemic, these changes were minimal for the most part. This held true whether the studies covered the mental health of the population as a whole or that of specific groups (e.g., people of particular ages, sex or gender, or with pre-existing medical or mental health conditions).
Mental health during the pandemic – need for a more nuanced understanding
“Mental health in COVID-19 is much more nuanced than people have made it out to be,” says Brett Thombs, the senior author, a Canada Research Chair and professor in the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University and senior researcher at the Lady Davis Institute of the Jewish General Hospital. “Claims that the mental health of most people has deteriorated significantly during the pandemic have been based primarily on individual studies that are ‘snapshots’ of a particular situation, in a particular place, at a particular time. They typically don’t involve any long-term comparison with what had existed before or came after.”
A story of resilience
By doing an overview of studies from around the world with data about the mental health of various populations, both prior to the pandemic and during COVID-19, the researchers found that there was little change in the mental health of most of the populations studied.
“This is by far the most comprehensive study on COVID-19 mental health in the world, and it shows that, in general, people have been much more resilient than many have assumed,” says Ying Sun, the first author on the paper and a research coordinator from the Lady Davis Institute.
The pandemic’s disproportionate effect on women
Some women experienced a worsening of symptoms–whether of anxiety, depression or general mental health. This could be due to their multiple family responsibilities, working in health care or elder care, or, in some cases, family violence.
“This is concerning and suggests that some women, as well as some people in other groups, have experienced changes for the worse in their mental health and will need ongoing access to mental health support,” said Danielle Rice, an Assistant Professor at McMaster University and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario. “The Canadian federal and provincial governments along with governments elsewhere in the world have worked to increase access to mental health services during the pandemic, and should ensure that these services continue to be available.”
Moving forward
“Our findings underline the importance of doing rigorous science–otherwise, our expectations and assumptions, together with poor-quality studies and anecdotes–can become self-fulfilling prophecies,” says Thombs.
The McGill University and Lady Davis Institute team is continuing to update their findings as research accumulates to look at mental health across different time periods in the pandemic. They are also looking at what governments and health agencies can do to ensure that researchers have access to better-quality and more timely mental health data going forward so that our health systems can gather information that will allow them to target mental health resources to people who need them most.
Some effects:
Among studies of the general population, no changes were found for general mental health or anxiety symptoms.
Depression symptoms worsened by minimal to small amounts for older adults, university students, and people who self-identified as belonging to a sexual or gender minority group, but not for other groups.
For parents, general mental health and anxiety symptoms were seen to worsen, although these results were based on only a small number of studies and participants.
The findings are consistent with the largest study on suicide during the pandemic, which included monthly data from official government sources on suicide occurrences from 21 countries between 1 January 2019 or earlier to 31 July 2020 and found no evidence of a statistically significant increase in any country or region; statistically significant decreases did, however, occur in 12 countries or regions.
BRIGHTON, UK, Mar 09 (IPS) – This year marks the halfway point— eight years in and eight years out— of the UN Sustainable Development Goals to end poverty and reduce inequalities.
Yet we are a long way off from these commitments, and multiple crises – now known as ‘polycrisis’ – such as conflict, disaster and extreme poverty are converging on low income and lower-middle income countries, necessitating systemic change in our poverty eradication efforts.
The scale of the challenge before us is undeniable. Poverty has long been concentrated in certain low- and lower middle-income countries that continue to experience conflict and a high number of conflict related fatalities, and high numbers of people affected by disasters from earthquakes, to floods, fires or drought.
These are just two causes of impoverishment and chronic poverty, which often combine with other crises and shocks including ill health.
This isn’t just a concern, however, at the country level. The challenge we are increasingly facing because of polycrisis in many parts of the world is that inequalities within countries are also worsening. The complex and often multi-layered nature of today’s crises means that policymakers need to develop longer term solutions, instead of firefighting crises as they emerge.
Our work at the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network (CPAN) in Afghanistan saw that the pandemic, layered with the transition in power, drought, and heightened economic crises, all combined to drive poverty and a dramatic increase in hunger.
Its consequences were especially worrying for certain groups, not least women and girls, and with intergenerational consequences.
In Nigeria, research points to a confluence of hardships over the years experienced by the poorest populations due to sequenced, interdependent crises. The poorest households pre-pandemic were more likely to experience hunger and sell agricultural and non-agricultural assets to cope during COVID-19 in 2020.
As time went on they were also more likely to pay more than the official price for petrol in 2022 during rampant economic crisis, and to expect drought and delayed rains to negatively affect them financially into 2023.
Yet despite interconnected crises, most governments and international agencies respond to each disaster individually as it arises. This could limit the effectiveness of poverty eradication interventions or create additional sources of risk and vulnerability amidst polycrisis.
For example, the singular focus of many countries responding to COVID-19 often diverted resources from other interventions including peacebuilding operations, thereby allowing new conflict risks to arise.
Working ‘in’ and ‘on’ polycrisis: centring equity and risk
To reach the goal of poverty eradication and reducing extreme inequities, it is critical to respond in a way is sensitive to working in places experiencing polycrisis. This requires at a minimum upholding principles of ‘do no harm’ and being sensitive to local conditions and contexts.
At the same time, we need to find ways of proactively working on polycrisis, by responding to multiple crises simultaneously rather than one at a time. In other words, building on learning from conflict contexts, we need to be working in and on polycrisis in the road to zero poverty.
Many countries worked ‘in’ polycrisis when responding to climate-related disasters during COVID-19. For example, the Bangladesh government adapted its Cyclone Preparedness Plan through various actions including modifying dissemination of messaging through public announcements and digital modalities, and combining early warning messaging with COVID-19 prevention and protection messaging.
Afghanistan disaggregates needs by sector, severity, location, and population groups in its humanitarian needs overview, which when considered holistically can help ensure responses that prioritise benefiting people in poverty.
There are equally important lessons from working ‘on’ polycrisis. The World Food Programme’s operational plan in response to COVID-19 was regularly updated to consider evolving layered crises and support pre-emptive action, scale-up direct food assistance, and reinforce safety nets.
There are also examples we can draw on for reducing poverty from around localised decision making, relying on the knowledge that local communities, women’s rights organisations, and local disaster risk management agencies have about populations in the areas in which they operate.
Flexibility in funding is important in this process to be able to respond to rapidly changing contexts and needs.
Working ‘in’ and ‘on’ polycrisis together necessitates matrix thinking, rebooting and recasting what we know of complexity of intersectionality. While we previously recognised intersecting inequalities primarily by identity markers, such as gender, caste, and socio-economic status, we need to increasingly be aware of how inequalities of people and place converge over time, and how we might centre equity in risk-informed responses.
This requires a fundamental shift from single-issue technocratic approaches to crisis management. For example, though social protection – direct financial assistance for people – was heralded as a key mitigation measure during COVID-19 and in response to recent food and energy price inflation, most cash transfer programmes averaged just four to five months during the pandemic.
Social protection could be adjusted to increasingly target the vulnerable as well as people in poverty, and within those categories the people who have arguably been most disadvantaged by these crises. Recovery programmes by governments and international agencies also need to go on for longer than they typically do to build people’s resilience in times of uncertainty.
Disaster-risk management agencies within government could also consistently integrate conflict considerations in their activities. There are examples of anticipatory action such as early warning systems that draw on local, customary knowledge that could be built on in this process.
Investments in coordination between disaster risk, social protection, and peacebuilding agencies, as well as multilateralism between governments, civil society, and international organisations more broadly are needed to anticipate and adapt to systemic risk.
But this risk-informed development will only get us so far, if equity is not centred alongside risk management. Just as crises are increasingly layered and interdependent, we need to similarly integrate our responses to break the link between polycrisis and poverty.
Opinion by Giulia Ribeiro Barao, Bosen Lily Liu (paris)
Inter Press Service
The following opinion piece is part of series to mark International Women’s Day, March 8.
PARIS, Mar 08 (IPS) – In September 2020, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action for women’s rights celebrated its 25th anniversary. It was, however, a bittersweet commemoration, mixing joy for the progress in gender equality achieved since 1995, and the stark realization about the multidimensional gaps awaiting tackling and the new divides brought by the social consequences of COVID-19.
In 2021, UNESCO projected that 11 million girls were at risk of not returning to school after the education interruptions caused by the pandemic. Even though the educational disruption accelerated the way into innovative learning practices, including distance and online education, it was not an equal reality for all social groups, since those already marginalized were also overrepresented in the offline population, including girls and women, and especially those living in poverty and rural communities (ECOSOC, 2021).
In 2020, worldwide, 57 percent of women used the Internet, compared with 62 per cent of men (ECOSOC, 2021). In the least developed countries (LDCs), landlocked developing countries (LLDCs), Africa, and the Arab States, the gender gap in internet use remains more significant.
For instance, in LDCs, only 19 per cent of women are using the internet, which is 12 percentage points lower than men. Similarly, in Africa, 24 per cent of women use the internet compared to 35 per cent of men, while in the Arab States, the Internet usage rate is 56 per cent, compared to 68 per cent of men.
Girls and women who are kept without access to Internet and digital literacy will not benefit from the technological revolution that is currently transforming all areas of life, most centrally the educational sector and the job markets.
Even though innovation and technology for girls and women’s education is undoubtedly a critical topic in the contemporary scenario, we should notice that innovation itself extends beyond the boundaries of the digital world.
To further explore the field of innovation in education, the UNESCO Young People on Transforming Education Project (YPTEP) focuses on innovative learning practices – technological or non-technological tools and techniques – initiated and led by learners themselves for meaningful and transformative engagement in their own educational journeys.
One highlight of the project is on understanding the gender-responsive practices from girls and women.
Girls and women worldwide have long been innovative in fighting gender barriers and creating self-initiative and community strategies to accessing learning even when excluded from Internet access and other forms of innovation.
A female leader who creates a finance course for mothers, while providing turns of collective care for their children, is innovating in education. A girl who creates a book club with her friends to read and debate publications on feminism is innovating in education.
Women in STEM, taking part in research and development groups, although still underrepresented, are innovating in education.
So, here we are – right at the crossroad where education, innovation and gender inequalities meet. Not paying attention to those issues will only aggravate previous gaps, hampering the advancement of all 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
To contribute to this debate and pathways for solutions, the UNESCO team of Young People on Transforming Education Project (YPTEP) at UNESCO IESALC hosted a Fireside Chat on “Women and girls, innovation, and higher education” on 6 March 2023 to reunite women and girls from different countries and regions and celebrate their success not only to overcome challenges, but also to become changemakers in the field.
During the chat, we had the opportunity to engage with ten female storytellers who shared their stories on innovative learning and expand our understanding of innovation, creativity, and transformation in education.
Stories approached, in a broader sense, innovative paths in getting access to higher education; innovative learning practices to get through education and achieve learning goals; innovative tools and techniques that have enhanced their experiences as learners both inside and outside the classroom; and studying and working initiatives to design new technology and broader forms of innovation for education.
Participation in the Fireside Chat is also open and expected from all those who wish to share their experiences on innovative learning and higher education. We have organized interactive activities and will have “open chatbox” and “open mic” for anyone who are willing to present yourselves typing and tell your stories live.
References
Global Education Monitoring Report Team & UNESCO. (2021). #HerEducationOurFuture: keeping girls in the picture during and after the COVID-19 crisis; the latest facts on gender equality in education . UNESCO.
