Over $100,000 in Pilot Grants to Improve Women’s Health, Reform Health Care

Researchers from Yale School of Medicine and Yale School of Public Health have been awarded over $100,000 in new Pilot Project Program grants from Women’s Health Research at Yale and co-funders.

The professors are expected to advance scientific knowledge to improve the health of women in several key areas, including: smoking cessation, which can be particularly difficult for women compared to men; ovarian cancer, which has the highest mortality rate among gynecological cancers; hypoparathyroidsim, a condition that can severely lower quality of life and is more common in women than men; and the disproportionate use by women of out-of-network health care services, which may explain why women pay more out-of-pocket costs for health care than men.

“The studies by this year’s researchers are intended to help solve some of the most pressing health concerns for women today, and are all in keeping with our program’s tradition of generating new data that can be translated into practical benefit for the health of women,” said Carolyn M. Mazure, director of Women’s Health Research at Yale.

The 2010 WHRY grant recipients are:

• Susan Busch, associate professor, Division of Health Policy and Administration, Yale School of Public Health: Busch will use a nationally representative survey of privately insured adults to analyze the disproportionate use by women of more expensive out-of-network health care services. There are no high-quality, unbiased data about this issue for women, so the study results are likely to inform policy makers as out-of-network health care reform moves forward. The research could lead to legislation that would have the effect of reducing health care costs for women. Busch’s study is funded by WHRY and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program.
• Alessandro D. Santin, M.D., professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences, Yale School of Medicine: Santin intends to develop a novel mechanism for advancing chemotherapy for ovarian cancer, which causes the highest mortality rate among gynecological cancers. He will explore the possibility of delivering a tumor-destroying chemotherapy using nanoparticles, which are ultra-tiny clusters of atoms designed to bind strategically with ovarian cancer cells. If successful, such an approach might dramatically change the nature of treatment and lead to increased ovarian cancer survival rates. Santin’s work is co-funded by WHRY and the Yale Cancer Center.
• Julie Ann Sosa, M.D., associate professor of surgery (oncology), Yale School of Medicine: Sosa plans to develop an innovative approach to treat hypoparathyroidism, a condition in which the parathyroid glands malfunction, leading to low blood-calcium levels. The condition is more common in women than men. She plans to induce human embryonic stem cells to develop into parathyroid cells that would secrete a parathyroid hormone and maintain normal calcium balance. Cellular replacement could lead to a cure. Sosa’s study is fully funded by WHRY.
• Andrea Weinberger, assistant professor of psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine: Women find it more difficult to quit smoking compared to men, and have had record lower quit rates than men every year since 1965. Weinberger’s study is designed to develop the foundation for a smoking cessation intervention recognizing that women, more than men, perceive risks in quitting smoking. These risks include weight gain, increased sadness and negative mood, and decreased concentration. She intends to tailor behavioral treatments to individual smokers’ perceived risks of quitting, allowing the treatment to address the needs of a wide range of individual smokers. Such an approach could substantially improve quit rates for women, thus reducing smoking’s damaging health consequences. Weinberger’s study is co-funded by WHRY and the Yale Cancer Center.

Women’s Health Research at Yale was founded in 1998 to address historic gender disparities in medical research by initiating and supporting innovative studies on the health of women and gender differences in health and disease. Since inception, WHRY has awarded more than $4 million in pilot or “seed” grants to nearly 60 Yale investigators who have generated approximately $42 million in new external grants for further research.

More information about Women’s Health Research at Yale is available at www.yalewhr.org