Women's Midlife Health

Featured Article: Neighborhood disorder, exposure to violence, and perceived discrimination in relation to symptoms in midlife women

Some symptoms at midlife are associated with stress, such as hot flashes, trouble sleeping, headaches, or depressed mood. Hot flashes have been studied in relation to laboratory stressors, physiological biomarkers, and self-reported stress, but less is known about hot flashes in relation to the larger context of women’s lives. This study examined the risk of symptoms in relation to neighborhood disorder, exposure to neighborhood violence, social cohesion and perceived discrimination. 

About the Editors

Dr. Siobán D. Harlow, Editor-in-Chief

Siobán D. Harlow, PhD, is Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Center for Integrated Approaches to Complex Diseases at the University of Michigan and Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at Michigan State University. She is Principal Investigator of the Michigan site of the 20–year multi-ethnic cohort Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN) and for the SWAN Repository and chaired the 2011 consensus conference: “STRAW+10: Addressing the Unfinished Agenda of Staging Reproductive Aging”. From 2003–2009, she served on the Scientific and Technical Advisory Group, Division of Reproductive Health Research, World Health Organization.

Dr. Nancy Fugate Woods, Editor-in-Chief

Nancy Fugate Woods, PhD, RN, FAAN, has led a sustained program of research in the field of women’s health. In 1989 Dr. Woods and her colleagues, including Dr. Joan Shaver, established the first NIH-funded Center for Women’s Health Research at the University of Washington School of Nursing.

Dr. Woods has served as president of the American Academy of Nursing, the North American Menopause Society, and the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research. She was honored with the American Nurses Foundation Distinguished Contribution to Nursing Research Award and the Pathfinder Award from the Friends of the National Institute for Nursing Research.

Dr. Woods was elected to the Institute of Medicine (now National Academy of Medicine) and to the American Academy of Nursing for her research, education, and advocacy advancing women’s health. She was elected to fellowship in the Gerontological Society of America.