Jennifer Hays, Ph.D.
Director

Dr. Jennifer Hays is the Director of the Center for Women's Health and an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, where she serves as Principal Investigator for the Baylor Clinical Center of the Women's Health Initiative. She is also the Senior Director of the Office of Health Promotion, which serves as a resource for all departments within the College, providing expertise and assistance in the development of health promotion materials and programs for a variety of populations.

Dr. Hays also holds an appointment of Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Houston, where she is an active participant in training and supervising doctoral student research. She has conducted numerous presentations and workshops for an international audience, and has published extensively in the fields of public health research, health promotion, and health psychology.

Other Faculty:

Jill Anderson, PhD
Director of Research

Harriet Spain, MPH
Director of Health Promotion

Susan Miller, MD
Medical Director

Contact Information:

Baylor College of Medicine
Center for Women's Health
6535 Fannin, MS-A701
Houston, TX 77030
(713) 798-4505
cwh@bcm.tmc.edu

During the 1960s and 1970s, women demanded equality. In the 1990s, women are demanding a revolution in health care. Several recent trends have contributed to this movement, including the growing presence of women in the medical community; the recognition of major deficits in our knowledge of women's health; an increased social and political awareness of the health care system to respect patient autonomy and diversity; and a growing recognition of the importance of women as health care purchasers.

Baylor College of Medicine has responded to this movement by creating the Center for Women's Health. The Center for Women's Health was formed in 1996 to develop and promote interdisciplinary research and the education of women and their health professionals. The goals of the Center are to:

• develop and identify programs and resources for medical education on women's health;
  
  
• facilitate and conduct research on topics uniquely influencing women's health;
  
  
• develop and implement standards of care;
  
  
• promote awareness of women's health within the local community by disseminating information and education; and,
  
  
• incorporate ethics in the development of health care policy for women.

Research

Faculty in the Center for Women's Health are conducting a variety of interdisciplinary research studies that look at the effects of drug therapies in women, changes that accompany menopause, as well as the long-term Women's Health Initiative; The Women's Health Initiative (WHI), sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, is an 11-year study of the leading causes of death in postmenopausal women. BCM is one of 40 participating institutions investigating the prevention of cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, and osteoporosis. More than 163,000 women will be recruited nationwide.

Medical Education

The CWH is developing and implementing a plan to highlight women's health and gender issues in the medical curriculum, and is currently implementing this theme in the BCM student curriculum. CWH data on medical education and women's health centers has been presented at numerous national conferences.

Community Education and Outreach

The CWH is committed to empowering women through knowledge and resources, and coordinates conferences and conducts frequent presentations to a variety of populations in the Houston area. The CWH also provides community education through a monthly newspaper column as well as other printed materials and electronic media.

National Coalition Building

The Center is among the founding members of the Alliance for Women's Health & Research, a national network of academic-based Women's Health Centers, pharmaceutical industry and corporate partners whose mission is to centrally organize research and education to improve women's health and quality of life. The Alliance coordinates multi-site research studies on women's health issues, develops multi-media educational programs that are disseminated through Alliance communities, and sponsors women's health symposia around the country.