Women's Health Initiative: Why now? What is it? What's new?

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Abstract
Studies collectively named the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) are currently enrolling 164,500 postmenopausal women in several overlapping clinical trials and an ob- servational study. The overall goals of WHI are to under- stand the determinants of postmenopausal women's health and to evaluate the efficacy of practical interven- tions in preventing the major causes of morbidity and mortality in older women. This article reviews the re- search leading to the WHI studies; describes the study designs and protocols, with an emphasis on what's new about WHI from a psychological perspective; and out- lines the major psychosocial hypotheses under investiga- tion and the major challenges WHI presents to psycho- logical science. men have long been underrepresented in edical research. Historically, women's alth research focused on diseases affecting fertility and reproduction. Other disease research focused disproportionately on men because of excess premature mortality in men, concerns that women's changing hor- mone levels could confound study results, and concerns about pregnancy during clinical trials. Given that older women constitute the fastest growing segment of the pop- ulation in the United States and that the incidence of chronic disease increases with age, a study on the health of postmenopausal women is long overdue. The Women's Health Initiative (WHI) is a long-term national health study focusing on the prevention of heart disease, breast and colorectal cancer, and osteoporosis in postmenopausal women. These chronic diseases are the major causes of death, disability, and frailty in older women of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds. Be- havioral and lifestyle factors strongly influence each of these diseases, and behavioral interventions may be use- ful for the prevention of disease. This 15-year project, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), involves 164,500 women aged 50-79, arguably making it the largest and most ambitious study of women's health ever conducted in the world.

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