ReproWell Research Network
The research community will use the Development Award to:
- Develop a new study protocol to collect rich questionnaire, physiological, and molecular data frequently over time, across menstrual cycles and in the perimenopausal period. The group will seek new ways to collect the intensive, rich, deep data required to address this complex relationship, and they plan to develop a new App for participants in our study to use. Existing smartphone and smartwatch apps already enable users to track markers of mental and physical wellbeing alongside their menstrual cycles but do not allow collection of research-quality data with the breadth and level of detail required.
- Prepare a large collaborative grant bid that, if successful, will enable the group to establish three intensive longitudinal study cohorts collecting data from women at different life stages (menarche, mid-adulthood, perimenopause). This will provide data spanning the reproductive life course much more quickly and cheaply, with less loss-to-follow-up, than a design that followed the same group of women across 40-50 years.
- Apply state-of-the-art data modelling approaches to address high priority pressing research questions about women’s health, for example:
How do menstrual pain and heavy bleeding, vasomotor symptoms like hot flushes, or urine leakage, impact mental health?
Do daily stressors and stressful life events affect the severity of menstrual/menopausal symptoms?
Are associations between menstrual/menopause symptoms and mental health mediated by inflammation?
How do socioeconomic status and access to healthcare impact the frequency and severity of menstrual and perimenopausal symptoms and their relationship with mental health?
How do fluctuations in reproductive hormones correlate with sleep quality and stress resilience?
Do modifiable health behaviours like smoking, alcohol consumption, caffeine consumption and physical activity affect the severity of menstrual and perimenopausal symptoms? What are the mediating biological mechanisms?
What role do social support systems (family, friends, community) play in mitigating the mental health impact of menstrual and menopausal symptoms?
How are women managing their menstrual/menopausal symptoms (e.g. help-seeking, pain killers, hormonal treatments, herbal remedies, physical activity) and do these management strategies mitigate the mental health impact differently?
How does monitoring health impact self-management, help-seeking, and long-term adaptation to chronic conditions?
The community will hold:
- An initial researchers workshop to discuss, develop and prioritise the research questions and approaches;
- Three focus-group workshops, one for each group being targeted (adolescents, mid-reproductive life, perimenopause/menopause) to discuss what issues they would like to be prioritised and their thoughts on menstrual cycle tracking apps and what they would like to see included/developed in our proposed app.
- Stakeholder workshop attended by menstrual/menopause and mental health charities
- Research protocol design workshop
