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On March 29, UMass Boston researchers Cynthia Aber, Diane Arathuzik, and Laurie Milliken presented their current research on areas of women's health and offered practical research advice as part of the 12th Women's Research Forum, sponsored by the McCormack Institute's Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy, the Women's Studies Program, and the Chancellor's Office.
College of Nursing professors Cynthia Aber and Diane Arathuzik discussed their joint project on perceptions and concerns of women during perimenopause, as well as their individual projects, including Aber's analysis of portrayals of women in medical journal advertisements and Arathuzik's study of pain management among those with advanced breast cancer.
According to Aber, advertisements depicting women in medical journals--with the notable exception of those produced by the U.S. military--are largely demeaning. She said, "We began to see women portrayed as needy and desperate, especially when viewed in contrast to the portrayal of men in those ads."
In Arathuzik's study of women dealing with cancer pain, she found that "for these patients, living as normal an existence as possible is a major motivating force to deal with pain." By performing a comparative analysis of interviews with 19 metastatic breast cancer patients, she found three main strategies: struggling with the pain, surrendering to the pain, and adjusting to the pain. "As nurses," Arathuzik said, "this research helps us to know how patients experience pain and how they can use different techniques. It adds to the body of knowledge available to nurses and cancer patients."
Aber and Arathuzik's collaborative work on perceptions and concerns of older women patients revealed that many felt they weren't being heard by their healthcare providers. "We discovered women were doing more things on their own and bypassing the healthcare system entirely," Aber noted.
At the Women's Forum (from left to
right) Carol Cardozo, Diane Arathuzik, Cynthia Aber, and
Laurie Milliken
(Photo by Harry Brett)
Also focusing on concerns of older women, Laurie Milliken of the Human Performance and Fitness Department discussed her $2 million, NIH-funded study of the effects of exercise on bone density turnover in postmenopausal women, research with implications for the treatment of osteoporosis.
Milliken studied four groups of women, ages 45-65. The women in one group received hormone therapy and exercised, while those in other groups exercised, or received hormone therapy, or did neither. She found that hormone therapy and exercise combined provided the greatest benefit. Hormone therapy alone proved better than exercise alone, but exercise alone was preferable to no treatment.
Beyond spotlighting these studies, the forum speakers offered general advice. Milliken shared a lesson she learned when her NIH grant failed to provide for analysis of blood samples. Undaunted, she froze specimens and eventually found funding from another source.
Milliken said, "You can always write a grant for the unfunded portion of a larger grant, or you might find a part of a project that is already funded and work on that." She noted the possibility of collaborating with other researchers using the same set of data.
All of the speakers emphasized the importance of collaboration and mentoring. "Women need to do mentoring and engage in collaboration," said Aber. "It is the only way I've been able to have an active research agenda, juggling a full-time academic schedule."
Chancellor Penney congratulated the presenters for their work and added, "Women's research--research by women and about women's issues--constitutes a significant part of what we do at UMass Boston. While nationally 40% of all doctorates are conferred on women, 68% of ours go to women."