Latest news with #ACitizen'sGuidetoMenopauseAdvocacy
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
How Citizen Advocacy Is Driving Real Change in Menopause Policy — State by State
In early February, we wrote for KCM (here and here) that despite all the acrimony in D.C., menopause is among the few policy issues that transcends political lines. To help advance this agenda, we teamed up to publish A Citizen's Guide to Menopause Advocacy, a free digital booklet to mobilize everyday people. The good news? It's working! Yes, there remains an avalanche of uncertainty about the future of federally funded research andnational policy, especially around women's health. But, as covered in the Citizen's Guide, state governments offer an important alternate route. Momentum is growing — and fast. For quick perspective, three states passed menopause laws over the last two years. As of 2024,California's various medical boards — including for doctors, nurses, and physicians' assistants —now can include coursework in menopausal health for continuing professional education requirements. Illinois (in 2023) and Louisiana (in 2024) mandated insurance coverage for someor all menopause treatments. (A bill to require insurance coverage for menopause treatment alsopassed in California last year, only for Governor Newsom to veto it.) That one-in-four states have proposed menopause laws shows that citizen advocacy works — andlawmakers are listening. Menopause has gone from 'Having a Moment' in 2023, to 'Fueling aMovement' in 2024, to being named on the 'Ones To Watch: Legislation Landscape for 2025'list in 2025. That's progress. Below is a state-by-state summary of menopause legislation introduced thus far this year. Checkout the non-profit Let's Talk Menopause (on whose board Jen serves) for additional informationand interactive features that make it easy to track progress and speak up and out. Arizona: HB 2734 would enable health care providers with tools to educate women on the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause and create informational materials. California: AB 432, the Menopause Care Equity Act would mandate comprehensive insurance coverage for menopause treatment; direct the state Medical Board to develop a menopause-specific Continuing Medical Education (CME) curriculum; and require physicians to complete menopause-specific CME if more than 25 percent of their patient population consists of women. AB 360 would require the state Medical Board to develop and administer menopause training surveys as part of the license renewal process. Connecticut: AB 6593 would require the state Department of Public Health to develop and distribute menopause guidelines and educational resources to health care providers, as well as conduct a public awareness campaign to educate residents; it would also mandate health care providers complete at least one CME credit regarding menopause. Illinois: SJR0025 would create Menopause Awareness Week on October 12-18, 2025 'to drive legislative action on workforce protections, healthcare equity, and research funding.' As noted in the Citizen's Guide, HB5295 will expand prior bill mandating treatment coverage for post-hysterectomy patients to include all menopause treatments as of Jan. 1, 2026. Maine: LD 1079 would direct the state Department of Health and Human Services to create informational materials on perimenopause and menopause. Massachusetts: H 2499 would mandate the state Department of Public Health improve patient and clinician awareness of the menopause transition and assess and improve menopause CME; it would also assess the impact of menopause on the workforce and policies offered by employers (including health insurance coverage of menopause treatments). Nevada: SB 297 would designate the month of September as Perimenopause Awareness Month and October as Menopause Awareness Month. New Jersey: AB 5278 would mandate comprehensive insurance coverage for perimenopause and menopause care and treatment. AB 5309/S4147 would permit one to three credits of CME on menopause to be used by physicians for license renewal. SB 4197/AB 3334 would require employers to allow employees suffering from a range of menstrual disorders (including as a result of perimenopause) to work remotely unless it would create an undue burden for employers. New York: AB 5444 would mandate comprehensive insurance coverage for perimenopause and menopause care and treatment. AB 5436 would help prevent discrimination and increase awareness about menopause and perimenopause. A01940/SB3908 would amend the workers' compensation law to provide four days of paid leave for menstrual complications, including perimenopause and menopause. S1720 would establish an awareness campaign on menopause hormone treatment. Oregon: HB 3064 would mandate treatment coverage by health plans within the state's reach, such as those insuring many public school employees and state employees. Pennsylvania: A Senate memo has been filed to introduce 2025 legislation that would require the state Department of Health and healthcare providers to provide information about menopause and perimenopause; the bill itself is not yet live. Rhode Island: S 0361 would extend workplace protections to those experiencing menopause. Texas: HB 3961 would require the Department of State Health Services to develop and distribute a menopause educational program, and to post informational materials on the department website. For all of us committed to women's health, this wave of legislative visibility should fuel our hope that it's worth our effort to fight for bipartisan and meaningful progress. We stand by what we wrote for KCM just two (albeit long) months ago: There is a runway for progress if we're committed to fighting for it. And here's why we should: Menopausal women, like our younger counterparts, must be able to make informed choices about our health. We deserve access to affordable, competent medical care and treatment from trained professionals. We have every right and reason to demand lawmakers and leaders invest in solutions that ensure our well-being, our dignity, our humanity. We owe it to ourselves — and to generations to come – to not back away from this cause, but double down in the pursuit. Jennifer Weiss-Wolf is the executive director of the Birnbaum Women's Leadership Center at NYU Law. Dr. Mary Claire Haver is a board-certified OB/GYN and certified menopause practitioner. They're co-authors of A Citizen's Guide to Menopause Advocacy. The post How Citizen Advocacy Is Driving Real Change in Menopause Policy — State by State appeared first on Katie Couric Media.
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Is This the One Issue That Can Transcend Political Lines?
Over the past few years, one topic in particular has become wildly popular in the public discourse, though it's certainly not a new phenomenon: Menopause. You've likely seen the countless viral articles with headlines like 'Menopause is Having a Moment,' and celebrities taking on the cause of awareness and education. Two bestselling tell-all books by Brooke Shields and Naomi Watts have been released in the last month, and Halle Berry shouted 'I am in menopause!' to a throng of reporters on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in May 2024, as part of a push for legislation to earmark millions for research on The Change. This attention helped inspire support for more public policy solutions last year. But one month into 2025, it's abundantly clear that to keep this momentum alive, we have to get serious about mobilizing the menopausal masses — the legions of everyday people failed by our nation's dismal investment in and delivery of women's mid-life healthcare. Enter A Citizen's Guide to Menopause Advocacy, a free digital booklet Dr. Mary Claire Haver and I teamed up to publish. The Citizen's Guide deliberately zeroes in on priorities that already enjoy bipartisan and/or private sector support — issues like investing in research, updating and upgrading public education about menopause and training for healthcare providers, and improving access to menopause treatments. (The guide's contributors are certainly well-aware of the issues at stake — they include Maria Shriver, who wrote the foreword, and eight leaders in the field: Dr. Sharon Malone, Dr. Lisa Mosconi, Dr. Judith Joseph, Dr. Kelly Casperson, Dr. Corinne Menn, Dr. Rachel Rubin, Tamsen Fadal, and Jannine Versi.) Less fractious among lawmakers than reproductive issues affecting younger women, menopause reforms would improve the lives of 75 million individuals, while boosting the economy and helping families. In fact, these may be among the only women's health matters that can transcend the political gridlock over the next few years. We head into this new Congress with promising bipartisan backing for several bills introduced last year, including the comprehensive Advancing Menopause and Mid-Life Women's Health Act in the Senate, which focuses on education and research. Its ranks of supporters have grown with the addition of Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, who spearheaded a House version of the bill. Want to help move things forward? The Citizen's Guide advises how to contact your representatives and demand they advance this legislation. As for the White House, the Women's Health Research Initiative executive order, launched in 2023, is still standing as of this writing (though links to it are scrubbed). Even if it becomes a casualty of future executive orders, it's already catalyzed nearly a billion dollars in menopause and women's mid-life health investments. These include grants awarded last October by the Advanced Research Projects Agency forHealth and a $500 million Department of Defense commitment to menopause research, among others. In the face of the administration's recent order to freeze public communication and spending by federal health agencies — compounded by the Jan. 31 deadline for all federal agencies to strip 'gender ideology' from their websites — the online menopause pages at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Research on Women's Health remain available, with future meetings and workshops announced. We believe that the next step should be for the NIH to update its messaging about the safety and efficacy of menopausal hormone treatment, in particular. Other federal agencies that can enable simple but powerful reforms include the U.S. Food and Drug administration (FDA). The FDA has sole authority to remove the inaccurate warning labels on vaginal estrogen medications, which have discouraged consumers from using the treatment and deprived women of care. Quite frankly, it's a demand the FDA has refused for years under leadership from both parties. Why shouldn't we insist it do better now? The Citizen's Guide is urging advocates to join Unboxing Menopause, a national petition to the FDA to do just that. Change need not come solely from Washington D.C.: States also have considerable influence to make menopause care more accessible. For example, Louisiana recently implemented a new law that requires Medicaid and private health insurance plans to cover perimenopause and menopause treatments. Illinois is poised to do so, as well: In 2023, its legislature mandated the same for women who've undergone hysterectomy; a 2024 amendment expands coverage under all circumstances, going into effect January 2026. Strategies for how to advocate in all 50 states are spelled out in the Citizen's Guide. All of this is to say that there is a runway for progress — if we're committed to fighting for it. And here's why we should: Menopausal women, like our younger counterparts, must be able to make informed choices about our health. We deserve access to affordable, competent medical care and treatment from trained professionals. We have every right and reason to demand lawmakers and leaders invest in solutions that ensure our well-being, our dignity, our humanity. We owe it to ourselves — and to generations to come — to not back away from this cause, but double down in the pursuit. We write in the Citizen's Guide that activism often is a 'choose your own adventure story,' one in which everyone has a skill to contribute and a role to play. That's surely true right now. It will take our collective voice, creativity, and commitment to break through the noise. Jennifer Weiss-Wolf is co-author of A Citizen's Guide to Menopause Advocacy and serves as executive director of the Birnbaum Women's Leadership Center at NYU Law. The post Is This the One Issue That Can Transcend Political Lines? appeared first on Katie Couric Media.
