Nurses Health Study- BWH Bulletin - For and about the People of Brigham and Women's Hospital
Nurses Health Study- BWH Bulletin - For and about the People of Brigham and Women's Hospital
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June 1, 2001
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In This Issue:
Nurses Health Study
Key findings from the Nurses’ Health Study
Who’s News
Dennis Thomson Compassionate Care Lecture
Fitcorp News
Quality Rounds
BWH 2nd Quarter Stats
NHS Celebrates 25 Years of Groundbreaking Women’s Health Research
When Frank Speizer, MD launched a study in 1976 to examine the relationship between use of oral contraceptives, cigarette smoking and risk of major illness, he could not have known the wide ranging impact it would have on the health of women throughout the world. Today, the BWH-based Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) celebrates a quarter-century of the some of the most important findings in women’s health. “The NHS has shed light on lifestyle changes and risk factors associated with a wide variety of chronic diseases affecting the whole female population,” said Frank Speizer, MD, principal investigator of the Nurses’ Health Study and the co-director of BWH’s Channing Laboratory. Funded through the National Institutes of Health, the NHS has produced findings associated with breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, hormone replacement therapy, stroke, diabetes, osteoporosis and several forms of cancer, and the research is still going strong. “The Nurses’ Health Study continues to make its mark establishing the powerful role that lifestyle factors play in disease prevention,” said JoAnn Manson, MD, DrPH, co-investigator of the NHS and chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine. Originally, the study was comprised of married, female registered nurses (RNs), ages 30 to 55, residing in the 11 states with the largest number of RNs—New York, California, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Michigan, Texas, Florida, Connecticut and Maryland. Participants were mailed an initial health-related questionnaire related to lifestyle patterns. Since 1976, similar questionnaires have been mailed to participants every other year, with an exceptionally high response rate of more than 90 percent. Occasionally, biological specimens are collected as well. Speizer suggested that nurses were chosen because he thought they would be interested as health care providers, and that they would be able to more accurately and with greater completeness report medical events. In 1989, Nurses’ Health Study II began with younger subjects, ages 25 to 42, to aid researchers in detecting more long-term effects of various factors in women of childbearing age. “The women involved in the Nurses’ Health Study I and II have been true medical trailblazers over the last 25 years. They have relentlessly provided us with a wealth of valuable information that we believe has changed the lives of millions of women,” said Speizer. “None of the study’s success would have been possible without the sustained commitment of the participants and numerous junior and senior investigators who have worked on the study over the years,” added Speizer. Speizer, Manson and other co-investigators have summarized their research in the soon-to-be released Healthy Women, Healthy Lives, which highlights a quarter-century of findings to better the health of today’s women and those of future generations. According to Manson, the book’s main message is that by making simple lifestyle changes, women can not only delay, but also potentially prevent, leading killers like heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer.