IWK launching study to better understand women’s health across the Maritimes | Globalnews.ca
Months after the IWK Foundation survey found a majority of women in the Maritimes feel significant changes are needed to improve women’s health care, the IWK Health Centre has launched a new study aimed at finding the next steps.
The study will gather input from women and gender-diverse people across the region. It will also reach out to caregivers and health-care providers.
The goal is to find out more about people’s experiences accessing health care and establish a list of top health research priorities for future studies.
“We’re really trying to understand how being a woman impacts their health concerns … because we know that the most important questions about women’s health still have not been properly studied,” said Justine Dol, the IWK’s lead researcher on the study.
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Dol is the Dr. Margaret Oulton Accelerate Chair in Women+ Health Research at IWK Health.
The initial survey, which concluded last October, found 56 per cent of women report health issues that disrupt their daily lives. Most have delayed or avoided seeking health care and only a third of respondents said that they are doing “okay.”
“It feels very disappointing. As a researcher, there’s a lot that we can do to advance the findings and the evidence but we really also need to work on closing the evidence-to-care gap,” said Dol.
This study comes just days after a Nova Scotia breast cancer survivor spoke at a provincial health committee, describing how she faced difficulties receiving surgery for her cancer due to her body mass index.
Kim White was also featured in Global News’ series, Unheard. Unserved: Maritime Women’s Health in Crisis, last fall.
“Seventy-five per cent of you do not have a clue what a woman goes through and the barriers that she faces. I’m so sick and tired of everyone blaming me because I’m fat, that I should have died,” White told MLAs.
Annette Elliott Rose, the vice-president of clinical performance and professional practice for Nova Scotia Health, also spoke at the committee meeting and said stories like White’s are essential to informing the work and changes needed to the system.
“This is about collective action that also includes and must include the voices of women and gender diverse people,” she said.
“There is a lot of important work that is happening and much more to do and Nova Scotia Health looks forward to working in partnership across the system.”
The new study will open for about six weeks and include participants 18 years or older who live in the Maritime provinces.
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