Post-reproductive women's health is getting more attention — in headlines, in everyday conversation and in the medical community. Still, for many women, especially in the years leading up to menopause, evidence and support remain out of reach.
A new primary care clinic set to open in Edmonton later this year aims to address that gap. Led by Faculty of Nursing professor Colleen Norris, specialized virtual care will focus on a period Norris calls "the most stressful time of a woman's life."
The project includes nearly $1 million from Alberta's new Primary Care Innovation Fund to pilot the clinic and lead research focused on post-reproductive women aged 35 and older.
Norris notes that while private services exist, they can be expensive and are not always evidence-based.
"Every woman should have access to publicly funded care that is based on scientific evidence," says Norris, who is the Cavarzan Chair in Women's Health Research, supported by the Alberta Women's Health Foundation.
Many women experience symptoms ranging from anxiety, depression and brain fog to sleep issues, hot flashes and heart palpitations, yet there's little research or publicly funded medical treatment available, Norris says.
They will go to their family doctors saying, "I just don't feel like myself," but if their periods haven't changed, reproductive aging may be overlooked as a cause of their symptoms, Norris says. She suspects their estrogen may already be waning or erratic.
"Estrogen does eight really vital things for your vascular system, which is your heart, brain and your blood vessels," says Norris, who is associate dean of research for nursing and is also an adjunct professor of cardiology and public health. "It protects. It keeps the elasticity. It clears out the bad fats. It elevates the good fats. All these things we need for our vessels to work properly."
"Our goal is that after the three-year pilot, this model will be picked up and it will keep going," says research project co-ordinator Maya Henriquez, a registered nurse with a master's degree in public health. "We will be providing analytics to the government about patient flow, uptake of services, all of those things."
A focus on research
The team plans to open the virtual clinic in Edmonton by the end of this year, with nurse practitioners providing specialized primary care for women before, during and after menopause, and Norris and her team carrying out research projects.
They've already created a registry of 300 patients who are willing to participate in research and will recruit more once the clinic is open.
