An effort led by the University of Chicago Medicine and partners around the globe aims to help scientists better focus their research to answer the most pressing unknown questions about menopause.
Launching on World Menopause Day (Oct. 18), the international initiative known as the Menopause Priority Setting Partnership (MAPS) is designed to bridge the gap between what menopause researchers choose to study and what patients and healthcare providers want to know about menopause.
The team is leveraging a global survey to identify gaps and unanswered menopause research questions from those with lived experience of menopause and the clinicians who care for them. They hope the project allows them to collect data about the natural stage of life that begins one year after a woman's last period; it is caused by decreased production of estrogen from the ovaries. UChicago Medicine is one of three organizations — and the only one in the U.S. — participating and funding the study. The others are the University of Melbourne in Australia and the EGA Hospital Charity in the U.K.
The MAPS online survey is simple: Participants are prompted to write in their top three concerns or questions about menopause. They can also provide demographic information if they wish, including their current age, age when they began menopause and country of residency. The survey is open for six weeks.
Along with clinicians who work in the field, anyone who has experienced menopause, including transgender and gender diverse men assigned female at birth and those who undergo menopause as a result of surgery or medical treatments (i.e., chemotherapy or radiation therapy), are encouraged to complete the survey.
The top 10 list of unanswered questions will be devised at the 19th World Congress on Menopause scheduled next October in Australia by an international steering committee of clinicians, researchers and representatives from menopause advocacy groups. The list will provide new, evidence-based priorities when funding is allotted to novel research projects.
The survey can be found at: https://uchicago.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_aXZRXo0CgtWa6Dc?Q_CHL=qr
