Military Women's Health Research Interest Group

The Women's Health Research Interest Group, aka the WHRIG, was created several years ago by a group of military women's healthcare providers with the passion to improve the care of women who serve in the United States military. Women in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines are serving in complex occupational specialties that sustain national policy and ensure combat effectiveness of our forces. The complexity of military jobs and increased deployments to combat operations has led to increased occupational and health risks for women.

The core leader team is proud to announce that the RIG has some exciting accomplishments to share. We met with our project director, Megan Foradori, as well as Dr. Elizabeth Yano and Dr. Bevanne Bean-Mayberry (both working in Veteran Women's Health at the VA) last July to plan for 2010-2011. Since then, we have started our review of the existing literature — the four core leaders screening 150+ relevant articles for inclusion in our project and sending those we've screened to include in this work to a core leader and a subject matter expert for comprehensive review. Our goals are to use this information to determine gaps in the literature and also to disseminate these articles (and critical analyses of them) online for interested researchers. Check out the impressive website our VA counterparts have created using the following web address: www.hsrd.research.va.gov/for_researchers/womens_health/search.cfm

We have also compiled and published a Military Women's Health Researcher Guide to help aid networking and mentoring within our research interest community. Find more information about this guide (and receiving an electronic copy) when you "Like" our Facebook page!

Our current plans include continuing our collection and review of literature, as well as looking at military women's health utilization data to see the most common causes for military women to seek care. We hope you will be a part of our group — please let us know how we can best serve you and the important work you do!

Hope you'll "like" us on Facebook for research updates, calls for papers, and networking in our researcher/clinician community. If you are not a Facebook user, you can still access all of our content (without becoming a formal fan of our page) by clicking on the link here.

Are you a researcher or clinician interested in being a part of our Women's Health RIG? Please download and complete this Word document and return by e-mail attachment to our project consultant at the address provided.