Nurses Health Study

I received a certificate in the mail today in recognition of 30 years participation in the Nurses’ Health Study. This is a research effort sponsored by Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. For the past 30 years I have answered questionnaires, sent in blood samples, and once even sent an envelope full of my toenail clippings. The study has been one of the biggest, longest lasting studies of women’s health. When it was begun there had been almost no research done using women because women had so many variables. We had these huge hormonal swings each month, we got pregnant and went through menopause. It was easier to just ignore all that variation. I am grateful and proud to have been able to contribute to this study of women’s health. The study has discovered, (I hope you are ready for this big discovery) that women are different than men.

When the study began only married women were asked to participate because it would have been inappropriate to ask single women about the use of birth control pills. Things have changed since then and the study has learned an enormous amount about women’s health. When I die my medical records are to be made available to this study to help understand women’s health