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Women in midlife are often ignored when it comes to medical research, especially Asian women. The Integrated Women’s Health Programme in Singapore is studying female-specific health issues such as menopause, osteoporosis, pre-diabetes, urinary incontinence and poor sleep. CNA Women finds out what it has revealed so far.
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Along-term programme by the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the National University Hospital (NUH) is aiming to answer questions about the health of midlife women in Singapore and close the gender healthcare gap.
Ethnicity and gender play a part in how health conditions present in individuals, and much of the medical research in the past has been based on Western participants, which may not apply to Asians.
Professor Yong Eu Leong, emeritus consultant at NUH’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, started the Integrated Women’s Health Programme (IWHP) in 2014.
The insights from IWHP will help identify and address the unique healthcare needs of midlife women and help to close the knowledge gap in Singapore and globally.
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One of its main aims is to study differences between ethnic groups
“Even within Singapore, there are different ethnic
groups with different genetic dispositions, and it is expected
that their symptoms and conditions will
differ,” he added. “For example, Indians are genetically
more closely related to Caucasians and
may therefore differ from Chinese and
Malays, who are more
related to East-Asian genotypes.”
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ASIAN WOMEN EXPERIENCE MENOPAUSE DIFFERENTLY
One of the main reasons the IWHP came about is because there is a significant gap in knowledge about the menopause transition, said Prof Yong.
“There is very little information available about menopausal changes relevant to Asian women generally and to Singapore women in particular,” he added. “This is despite menopause being a life-altering event for women, being of the same significance as menarche at puberty and childbirth during their reproductive years.”
