THE
2003 BARNARD SUMMIT: WOMEN AND HEALTH
April 5, 2003
The
Barnard Summit convened to explore women’s health through
a social lens—how changes in women’s lives affect their
health and how women’s health acts as a barometer for the
well-being of society overall. The forum drew nearly 700 women
and men—health professionals, scholars, journalists, and
Barnard College faculty and students—and produced lively
discussion amongst panelists as well as the audience. The
groups explored trends and medical progress on women’s health
worldwide and expressed their personal health concerns.
Barnard College President Judith Shapiro, a cultural anthropologist
who has been a leader in women’s higher education for two
decades, opened the forum by discussing women’s health within
the context of the war in Iraq. Although women are increasingly
involved directly in combat operations, she said, women are most
often affected by war and armed conflict as civilian casualties
and refugees. The United Nations counts 10 million women and girls
among refugees worldwide, Shapiro said in her introductory remarks.
Access to medical care, both in the United States and throughout
the world, is a key concern for women. Shapiro noted that 515,000
women die every year during childbirth and 99 percent of these
deaths occur in the developing world. And, while Americans spend
$35 million annually on weight loss programs, nearly all women
of reproductive age in regions of Africa and South Asia are undernourished.
Infectious diseases devastate women and their families worldwide.
But positive trends include a marked increase in the number of
women in the medical professions, and, more important, a movement
of women in increasing numbers who are taking responsibility for
their own health.
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Judith
Shapiro's opening remarks (4:24):
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| Judith
Shapiro explains the importance of examining women’s
health in the context of current world events and the war
in Iraq. While poverty is the cause of great disparities in
health care between industrialized and developing countries,
positive trends in research and advocacy and in women’s
advancement in the health professions remind us to be hopeful.
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PANEL
1 - WOMEN’S HEALTH TRENDS: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT
Moderator:
Barnard College President Judith
Shapiro
Panelists: Joan Jacobs Brumberg,
Faye Wattleton, Gina
Kolata, Cindi Leive, Dr.
Christina Beato, Dr. Marianne
Legato and Dr. Judith Reichman
Giselle
Harrington
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Panel
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| Cortney
Davis, Lawrence Smith, Shobha Krishnan, Giselle Harrington,
Polly Wheat, Janet Jakobsen, and Barnard students, voice their
concerns about unhealthy body image, eating disorders, sexual
abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, stress and other health
risks to American women. |
Ethnic background and economic status have been recognized as
among the many factors that lead to inequality in health care.
But gender needs to receive the same critical analysis in the
medical field. The study of women’s health has, until recently,
been equated with diseases of women’s reproductive organs.
Advances in treating female cancers, especially breast cancer,
have yielded higher survival rates in the last ten years. More
women also survive due to early detection and diagnosis. However,
research and prevention of diseases like heart disease—the
leading killer of women in the United States—have traditionally
focused on men. Dr. Marianne Legato of the Columbia University
medical faculty, who is founder and director of the Partnership
for Gender-Specific Medicine, believes that studying the different
ways men and women experience the same health problems will yield
valuable medical insights into prevention and treatment for both.
Heart disease and stroke kill over half a million women in the
United States every year. Public health leaders are beginning
to recognize this critical health risk as well as the impact of
obesity, diabetes, hormone therapy and mental health on women.
Dr. Cristina Beato, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health in the
U.S. Health and Human Services department, and HHS Secretary Tommy
Thompson’s principal adviser on health, said women are living
longer because of medical advances in treatments and cures. However,
she believes they are neglecting preventative measures, such as
exercise and diet.
Women are increasingly taking personal responsibility for their
health, but conflicting information, particularly from the media,
makes it difficult for women to make decisions about medical treatments.
Gina Kolata, The New York Times science and medicine reporter,
said communicating information is complicated by the experts themselves,
who are often torn about how to advise patients. She cited the
recent controversies about mammography and estrogen therapy as
examples. Women were told to decide in consultation with their
own doctors what risks they were willing to take, but many were
perplexed by conflicting information. Kolata argued that journalists
cannot act as advocates but rather should simply inform the public,
while women must be savvy consumers of information as they examine
their own individual needs.
Health experts agree that the media plays a significant role in
informing women about health trends and medical treatments, but
some believe that the media should play a stronger advocacy role.
Dr. Judith Reichman, a gynecologist and obstetrician and NBC Today
Show contributor, is concerned that women are often overly cautious
about therapies due to negative reporting. She argued that the
recent controversy over estrogen therapy and heart disease may
have scared many women who should be receiving treatment.
Access
to healthcare and treatment remains a critical problem in the
United States. Despite medical advances, 42 million Americans,
many of them poor women and children, do not have health coverage.
Faye Wattleton, president of the Center for Gender Equality, said
that only by looking at the health needs of women in a more comprehensive
manner, can we find solutions to crucial problems like access
to healthcare, violence against women and other public health
issues.
Dr.
Marianne Legato believes that public health officials and the
medical community are obliged to make the media aware of new inroads
in women’s health beyond reproductive health issues. Dr.
Cristina Beato emphasized that ethnic diversity must drive research
and health literacy while racial discrimination continues to play
a role in health disparities and access to treatment for women.
Joan Jacob Brumberg, professor of Women’s Studies at Cornell
University, argued that sex education is an important part of
teaching health literacy. She challenged the notion advocated
by the Bush administration in favor of "Abstinence, Be Faithful,
or use Condoms" (ABC), and points to the importance of promoting
safe sex.
To view a complete
video of the panel and a transcript of all the panelists' comments,
please visit the Kaiser Family Foundation by clicking
here.
Recommended Links:
Healthfinder
Partnership
for Gender-Specific Medicine
PANEL
2: WOMEN AND HEALTHCARE: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Moderator:
ABC News Correspondent Lynn Sherr
Panelists: Elizabeth Wurtzel,
Vivian Pinn, Isaac
Schiff, Susan Wood, Byllye
Avery, Ellen More, Judy
Norsigian
Jane
Brody
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2 Video Introduction (3:32):
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Cortney Davis, Jane Brody, Lawrence Smith, Ann Roiphe,
Janet Jakobsen, Betsy Carter and Barnard students express
their concerns about inadequate insurance coverage, a health
care system currently based on treatment rather than prevention,
and the ever-growing importance of the doctor/patient relationship. |
Inequities in health care are widespread; determined not only
by economic and accessibility factors, but also by the availability
of information. Judy Norsigian, co-author of Our Bodies, Ourselves
and founder of the Boston Women’s Health Collective, argued
that health care in the United States is compromised by a lack
of information, education, and communication, and that it is driven
more by economics than science.
Women’s grass roots advocacy has paved the way for expanded
medical research devoted specifically to women’s health needs.
Byllye Avery, founder of the National Black Women’s Health
Project now called the Black Women's Health Imperative, encouraged
women to continue that advocacy—to organize their communities
and fight for their rights—to empower themselves in the quest
for critical information and care.
Dr. Vivian
Pinn, director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health
at the National Institute of Health, echoed Avery’s emphasis
on the grass roots movement as a means to bring about change and
to expand funding for research on how diseases, such as stroke
and heart attack, affect women. She explained how women have shifted
public policy from their communities to the federal level.
Despite increases
in funding and attention to women’s health, science remains
imperfect and continues to evolve, explained Pinn. Two recent
studies, one by the Women’s Health Initiative and the other
by the Nurses Health Study, yielded conflicting data about the
risks of estrogen and heart disease in post-menopausal women.
Such disparities illuminate the need for controlled studies to
provide more conclusive medical evidence. Susan Wood, director
of the FDA’s office on Women’s Health, argued that despite
the confusion, women must weigh the risks and the benefits of
estrogen and be aware of other options.
As more
women become physicians, researchers and public policy makers,
women’s health issues are gaining recognition. However,
increased access to both care and information remain an important
challenge. Though women’s daily professional responsibilities
have expanded, they remain the primary caretakers for children
and shoulder the largest burden for the family and its home life.
Thus, said Isaac Schiff, chief of Obstetrics and Gynecology and
Massachusetts General Hospital, women continually increase their
stress levels and compromise their health.
To view a complete
video of the panel and a transcript of all the panelists' comments,
please visit the Kaiser Family Foundation by clicking
here.
Recommended Links:
National Institute of Health’s Women’s Health Initiative
Black Women's Health
Imperative
PANEL
3: WOMEN AND WORLD HEALTH: A MATTER OF SURVIVAL
Moderator:
NBC Weekend Today anchor Soledad
O’Brien
Panelists: Dr. Afaf I. Meleis,
Carolyn Hannan, Dr.
Helene Gayle, Jeffrey Sachs,
Dr. Nafis Sadik, Ping-chen
Hsiung, Dr. Mary Travis Bassett
Lack of access to health care is an international crisis, but
it is particularly devastating in the developing world. Impoverished
women face dire circumstances just trying to survive and feed
their families. Meanwhile, the crisis of AIDS worldwide has left
thousands of children without families to care for them. Financial
aid to the developing world must increase, but research must also
improve to support aid targeted at women and children. Exploring
the issues of poverty and health care access, Dr. Afaf Meleis,
Dean of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania, stressed that
an understanding of how women work and support their families
is critical to targeting both financial and educational assistance.
For women
in developing countries, exposure to infectious and sexually transmitted
diseases often results from their work, with both socioeconomic
and environmental factors putting them at risk. As Dr. Helene
Gayle, director of the Gates Foundation for HIV/AIDS, explained,
aid must come in the form of training programs and education in
order to empower women and improve their health.
Understanding
cultural and gender differences is vital to improving women’s
roles as decision-makers within their families and on a national
level. In order to understand the plight of poor women, for example,
experts must study the lives of poor women separately from those
of men. Aid organizations often address the issues of the poor
generally, without considering the gender differences at play,
explained Carolyn Hannan, Director of the United Nations Division
for the Advancement of Women.
The pervasive
problems of gender inequality, racism and poverty require both
long-term and short-term solutions. Experts must battle the larger
social and economic factors that cause poverty while simultaneously
trying to make a difference in the daily lives of women on a local
level, said Dr. Mary Bassett, New York City Deputy Health Commissioner.
Dr. Helene
Gayle stressed that information culled from international health
workers and policy makers can also inform domestic health issues
at home. Dr. Nafis Sadik, Special Advisor to the United Nations
Secretary General, cited local programs in the United States and
the United Kingdom where problems of adolescent health, reproductive
health and HIV/AIDS parallel those in much of the world. But Jeffrey
Sachs, Director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute
and Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General, cautioned that,
while we learn from other countries’ health care methods,
we should not lose sight of their relative lack of health care
access and our responsibility to improve those circumstances.
To view a complete
video of the panel and a transcript of all the panelists' comments,
please visit the Kaiser Family Foundation by clicking
here.
Recommended Links:
United Nations Division
for the Advancement of Women
The Earth Institute at
Columbia University
ABOUT
THE BARNARD SUMMIT
The Barnard
Summit is a leadership initiative of Barnard President Judith
Shapiro, who heads the organizing committee with the assistance
of a distinguished advisory board drawn from government, academia,
charitable organizations, the media and the corporate world. Shapiro,
a cultural anthropologist, has led Barnard since 1994.
This is the second forum of its kind, following the success of
the inaugural Barnard Summit: Women, Leadership and the Future
on October 26 and 27, 2001. The first summit drew 1,000
women and men to the Barnard campus to hear Janet Reno, Lt. General
Claudia Kennedy, Marian Wright Edelman and others discuss how
women's changing roles were altering society and the family; and
to assess the remaining barriers to full equality between women
and men.
The Summit was developed into a PBS program, The Future of
the Family: The Barnard Summit, which aired on Connecticut
Public Television on March 21, and is being distributed nationwide.
The 2003 Barnard Summit was taped again in cooperation with CPTV
for broadcast on PBS in fall 2003.
The topic of this year’s summit was particularly significant
to Barnard, as its Well Woman health promotion
program celebrated its 10th anniversary. Taking a holistic approach
to healthy living, Well Woman educates students about stress management,
nutrition, substance abuse, exercise, sexuality and other topics.
Your
comments are welcome. Please contact: Suzanne Trimel, Vice President
for Public Affairs, Barnard College,
strimel@barnard.edu
The
report was produced for the Barnard Office of Public Affairs by
Sharon Kay, an independent web and television producer with credits
at ABC and PBS and former staff member of Fathom at Columbia University,
and edited and assembled by Secil Cornick of the Sloate Media
Center at Barnard and Elissa Matsueda, Barnard's web editor.
