Women, work and the menopause: releasing the potential of older professional women

Explores the experiences of menopause for professional women as part of a broader appreciation of health and well-being in later life. Executive summary This report presents the key findings and recommendations of a research project entitled Women, Work and the Menopause: Releasing the Potential of Older Professional Women. Menopause is a ‘silent issue’ for most organisations, and older women represent a group whose working lives, experiences and aspirations are poorly understood by employers, national governments and academic researchers alike. This is highly unfortunate given that women aged 45 years and over comprise 17% of the ageing Australian workforce, meaning that over one million working women are currently going through, or have already gone through, the menopause. The broad aim of this project was therefore to examine the occupational health and well-being of older women, with a particular emphasis on understanding women’s experiences of menopause at work. More specifically, the project set out to generate insights on five key areas: 1. Older women’s health and well-being; 2. The relationship between menopause-related symptoms and four specific work outcomes (work engagement, job satisfaction, organisational commitment, intention to quit); 3. Actual and desired levels of organisational support for women experiencing menopause; 4. Work-related and organisational factors that exacerbate or ameliorate women’s experiences of menopause in the workplace; and 5. Women’s first-hand experiences, beliefs and attitudes towards menopause at work. Data collection took place between November 2013 and March 2014 via two parallel research studies. The first study consisted of an online survey (herein referred to as WAW – Women at Work Survey) of 839 women (age range 40-75 years; average age 51.3 years) employed in academic, administrative and executive roles at three Australian universities. The second study (herein referred to as Prime – The Prime Project) involved 48 qualitative interviews with academic and administrative staff members at two Australian universities. The study identified the following key findings: All age groups reported average to good mental and physical health. While self-reported physical health deteriorated with age, mental health appeared to improve with age (60+ year olds reported better mental health than 40-49 and 50-59 year olds). Among administrative and executive staff, women aged 40-49 years reported greater intention to quit their jobs than their older colleagues (50-59 years and 60+ years old). The interview study was marked by an overwhelming sense that ‘women just get on with it’. This theme captured many inter-related aspects of women’s experiences of mid-life in general (e.g., of juggling demanding and multiple work and care-giving roles) and underlined the considerable, and often unacknowledged, resilience of older professional women. Peri-women currently experiencing the menopause most frequently experienced the following symptoms associated with menopause (in descending order of prevalence): sleep disturbance, headaches, weakness or fatigue, loss of sexual desire, anxiety, memory loss, pain in bone joints, and hot flushes. None of the measured work outcomes differed by menstrual status. However, the more frequently women reported experiencing menopause-related symptoms and the more bothersome the symptoms were, the less engaged they felt at work, less satisfied with their job, the greater their intention to quit their job and the lower their commitment to the organisation. The interview findings, however, suggested that it is difficult to attribute many symptoms simply to menopause. Symptoms can also be associated with ageing and ‘the time of life’ more generally, or the occupational impact of the working environment, such as stress (notably associated with organisational change and work intensification). Negative organisational and managerial messages about older women had a significant impact on how engaged, and how included, women felt at work. There was evidence of gendered ageism, with many women only feeling able to talk informally to other close female colleagues and friends about their menopausal experiences. Organisational sub-cultures were also found to have a significant influence on women’s experience of menopause at work, creating particular demands on women to ‘fit in’ and to manage expectations and workplace identities that assumed an ‘unproblematic body’. Work-related and organisational factors played important roles in ameliorating or exacerbating women’s experience of menopause at work. Temperature control over their immediate environment was important, as was the exacerbating impact of the increasingly sedentary nature of work that might intensify menopausal-related symptoms. However, paid employment also held positive benefits for some women, ameliorating their symptoms and providing an environment in which to develop and blossom as strong, independent and energetic employees. The flexibility of working arrangements (notably in respect of work time) was a particular characteristic that benefited (menopausal) women. Both the survey and the interviews pointed to a lack of menopause-specific support or information in their organisational settings. Many were unsure whether line managers were given training in awareness of the menopause in the workplace. While organisations should provide information, there were varying views about whether organisations should or could introduce menopause-specific policies, or whether that would only serve to marginalise or problematise older workers. While women did not want formal management or ‘intervention’ of the menopause, organisational understanding and support was deemed to be important and part of a broader message as to whether older women were welcome in the workplace or not. This report proposes a number of recommendations related to Occupational Health and Safety (OH&S) and Human Resources (HR) Management, and emphasises the role of general organisational processes, policies and professional bodies in initiating change. To plan for improved working conditions for older women now, is to ensure that organisations will reap future rewards by acknowledging and investing in this reliable, loyal, committed and resilient segment of the workforce. &nbsp

Spitzer Warm Mission Transition and Operations

Following the successful dynamic planning and implementation of IRAC Warm Instrument Characterization activities, transition to Spitzer Warm Mission operations has gone smoothly. Operation teams procedures and processes required minimal adaptation and the overall composition of the Mission Operation System retained the same functionality it had during the Cryogenic Mission. While the warm mission scheduling has been simplified because all observations are now being made with a single instrument, several other differences have increased the complexity. The bulk of the observations executed to date have been from ten large Exploration Science programs that, combined, have more complex constraints, more observing requests, and more exo-planet observations with durations of up to 145 hours. Communication with the observatory is also becoming more challenging as the Spitzer DSN antenna allocations have been reduced from two tracking passes per day to a single pass impacting both uplink and downlink activities. While IRAC is now operating with only two channels, the data collection rate is roughly 60% of the four-channel rate leaving a somewhat higher average volume collected between the less frequent passes. Also, the maximum downlink data rate is decreasing as the distance to Spitzer increases requiring longer passes. Nevertheless, with well over 90% of the time spent on science observations, efficiency has equaled or exceeded that achieved during the cryogenic mission

Spitzer Mission Operation System Planning for IRAC Warm-Instrument Characterization (IWIC)

This paper will describe how the Spitzer Mission Operations System planned and executed the characterization phase between Spitzer’s cryogenic mission and its warm mission. To the largest extend possible, the execution of this phase was done with existing processing and procedures. The modifications that were made were in response to the differences of the characterization phase compared to normal phases before and after. The primary two categories of difference are: unknown date of execution due to uncertainty of knowledge of the date of helium depletion, and the short cycle time for data analysis and re-planning during execution. In addition, all of the planning and design had to be done in parallel with normal operations, and we had to transition smoothly back to normal operations following the transition. This paper will also describe the re-planning we had to do following an anomaly discovered in the first days after helium depletion

Review of Ground Systems Development and Operations (GSDO) Tools for Verifying Command and Control Software

The Exploration Systems Development (ESD) Standing Review Board (SRB) requested the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) conduct an independent review of the plan developed by Ground Systems Development and Operations (GSDO) for identifying models and emulators to create a tool(s) to verify their command and control software. The NESC was requested to identify any issues or weaknesses in the GSDO plan. This document contains the outcome of the NESC review

Spitzer Mission Operation System Planning for IRAC Warm-Instrument Characterization (IWIC)

This paper will describe how the Spitzer Mission Operations System planned and executed the characterization phase between Spitzer’s cryogenic mission and its warm mission. To the largest extend possible, the execution of this phase was done with existing processing and procedures. The modifications that were made were in response to the differences of the characterization phase compared to normal phases before and after. The primary two categories of difference are: unknown date of execution due to uncertainty of knowledge of the date of helium depletion, and the short cycle time for data analysis and re-planning during execution. In addition, all of the planning and design had to be done in parallel with normal operations, and we had to transition smoothly back to normal operations following the transition. This paper will also describe the re-planning we had to do following an anomaly discovered in the first days after helium depletion

Genome-Wide Association Study in BRCA1 Mutation Carriers Identifies Novel Loci Associated with Breast and Ovarian Cancer Risk

BRCA1-associated breast and ovarian cancer risks can be modified by common genetic variants. To identify further cancer risk-modifying loci, we performed a multi-stage GWAS of 11,705 BRCA1 carriers (of whom 5,920 were diagnosed with breast and 1,839 were diagnosed with ovarian cancer), with a further replication in an additional sample of 2,646 BRCA1 carriers. We identified a novel breast cancer risk modifier locus at 1q32 for BRCA1 carriers (rs2290854, P = 2.7×10-8, HR = 1.14, 95% CI: 1.09-1.20). In addition, we identified two novel ovarian cancer risk modifier loci: 17q21.31 (rs17631303, P = 1.4×10-8, HR = 1.27, 95% CI: 1.17-1.38) and 4q32.3 (rs4691139, P = 3.4×10-8, HR = 1.20, 95% CI: 1.17-1.38). The 4q32.3 locus was not associated with ovarian cancer risk in the general population or BRCA2 carriers, suggesting a BRCA1-specific associat

A survey of relationship between anxiety, depression and duration of infertility

BACKGROUND: A cross sectional study was designed to survey the relationship between anxiety/depression and duration/cause of infertility, in Vali-e-Asr Reproductive Health Research Center, Tehran, Iran. METHODS: After obtaining their consents, 370 female patients with different infertility causes participated in, and data gathered by Beck Depression Inventory(BDI) and Cattle questionnaires for surveying anxiety and depression due to the duration of infertility. This was studied in relation to patients' age, educational level, socio-economic status and job (patients and their husbands). RESULTS: Age range was 17–45 years and duration and cause of infertility was 1–20 years. This survey showed that 151 women (40.8%) had depression and 321 women (86.8%) had anxiety. Depression had a significant relation with cause of infertility, duration of infertility, educational level, and job of women. Anxiety had a significant relationship with duration of infertility and educational level, but not with cause of infertility, or job. Findings showed that anxiety and depression were most common after 4–6 years of infertility and especially severe depression could be found in those who had infertility for 7–9 years. CONCLUSIONS: Adequate attention to these patients psychologically and treating them properly, is of great importance for their mental health and will improve quality of their lives

Associations among physiological and subjective sexual response, sexual desire, and salivary steroid hormones in healthy premenopausal women.

Few studies have examined how sexual arousal influences healthy premenopausal women’s hormones, limiting our understanding of basic physiology and our ability to transfer knowledge from clinical and nonhuman populations. Aim: To examine how sexual arousal and steroid hormones (testosterone [T], cortisol [C], estradiol [E]) were linked, to see whether hormone levels influenced and/or changed in response to sexual arousal elicited via visual erotic stimuli in healthy women. Methods: Participants included 40 healthy premenopausal women not using exogenous hormones. Main Outcome Measures: Change in genital sexual arousal (vaginal pulse amplitude), change in subjective sexual arousal, sexual desire (via the Sexual Desire Inventory and Female Sexual Function Index scales), as well as T, C, and E via saliva samples taken before and following viewing of erotic stimuli as genital arousal was recorded via a vaginal photoplethysmograph. Results: E increased in response to sexual stimuli but this was not statistically associated with genital sexual arousal, whereas C decreased in association with genital sexual arousal, and T showed no statistically significant change. Relationship status was linked to genital but not subjective sexual arousal such that dating women exhibited higher genital sexual arousal than single or partnered women. Results indicated that all three hormones were associated with self-reported genital arousal (via the Detailed Assessment of Sexual Arousal scales) and sexual desire in different domains, and both T and E were associated with self-reported orgasms. Conclusion: Findings point to the need to examine multiple hormones in multiple ways (e.g., baseline, changes, stimulated) and question using erotic stimuli-induced arousal as a model for women’s endocrine responses to sexuality.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/83877/1/associations_among_physiological.pd

Genome-Wide Association Study in BRCA1 Mutation Carriers Identifies Novel Loci Associated with Breast and Ovarian Cancer Risk

BRCA1-associated breast and ovarian cancer risks can be modified by common genetic variants. To identify further cancer risk-modifying loci, we performed a multi-stage GWAS of 11,705 BRCA1 carriers (of whom 5,920 were diagnosed with breast and 1,839 were diagnosed with ovarian cancer), with a further replication in an additional sample of 2,646 BRCA1 carriers. We identified a novel breast cancer risk modifier locus at 1q32 for BRCA1 carriers (rs2290854, P = 2.7×10, HR = 1.14, 95% CI: 1.09-1.20). In addition, we identified two novel ovarian cancer risk modifier loci: 17q21.31 (rs17631303, P = 1.4×10, HR = 1.27, 95% CI: 1.17-1.38) and 4q32.3 (rs4691139, P = 3.4×10, HR = 1.20, 95% CI: 1.17-1.38). The 4q32.3 locus was not associated with ovarian cancer risk in the general population or BRCA2 carriers, suggesting a BRCA1-specific association. The 17q21.31 locus was also associated with ovarian cancer risk in 8,211 BRCA2 carriers (P = 2×10). These loci may lead to an improved understanding of the etiology of breast and ovarian tumors in BRCA1 carriers. Based on the joint distribution of the known BRCA1 breast cancer risk-modifying loci, we estimated that the breast cancer lifetime risks for the 5% of BRCA1 carriers at lowest risk are 28%-50% compared to 81%-100% for the 5% at highest risk. Similarly, based on the known ovarian cancer risk-modifying loci, the 5% of BRCA1 carriers at lowest risk have an estimated lifetime risk of developing ovarian cancer of 28% or lower, whereas the 5% at highest risk will have a risk of 63% or higher. Such differences in risk may have important implications for risk prediction and clinical management for BRCA1 carriers. © 2013 Couch et al