The UNC Center for Women’s Health Research is delighted to share the award recipients from our Women’s Health Research Poster Presentation and Awards Program.
The UNC Center for Women’s Health Research held its second annual (biennial moving forward) Poster Presentation & Awards Program May 10-14 to coincide with National Women’s Health Week. The goal of this program is to stimulate and showcase research being done by undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, residents, faculty members, and staff of UNC and to encourage networking and multidisciplinary collaborations to promote the essential work being done in alignment with our mission: Learning about diseases, disorders, and conditions that uniquely affect women, predominantly affect women, and affect women differently than men.
Below are the recipients of this year’s awards, but we are extremely grateful for the enthusiasm and hard work demonstrated by all those who submitted as well as the effort of our awards jury!
Best Poster by a Graduate Student
Bhawana Shrestha, PhD
Engineering Ultra-Potent Sperm-Binding IgG Antibodies to Develop Effective Non-Hormonal Female Contraception
“It baffles me how little has been done to alleviate the unwanted side-effects of hormonal-based contraceptives, despite the approval of the hormonal contraceptive pill 60 years ago. With our work, we aim to not only develop safe and effective non-hormonal contraceptives for women but also draw much-needed focus on the effect of contraceptives on women’s health and the lack of innovation in the contraceptive field.”
Best Poster by a Resident or Fellow
Bianca Allison, MD, MPH
Trends in Initiation and Continuation of Long-acting Reversible Contraception among Female Adolescents in North Carolina
“I believe my work is a springboard to create innovative solutions for how to improve the reproductive autonomy of adolescents, especially minority and rural youth receiving Medicaid in North Carolina. I hope my findings will allow us to not only understand the disparities in adolescent access to LARC across our state, but help us ask meaningful questions about how and why adolescents are and are not choosing LARC, so we can best support them in achieving their reproductive health goals.”
Best Poster by Faculty or Staff
Leslie L Davis, PhD
Usability Study of an Educational Website Designed to Improve Angina Symptom Recognition in Women with History of Heart Attack
“For women that experience a heart attack, nearly one in five will be readmitted for another heart attack within the next year. The highest risk for recurrent symptoms, another heart attack, and/or rehospitalization is within the first month after heart attack. Yet, many women don’t recognize symptoms of a heart attack, even if they have had a prior event. Thus, it is imperative that women receive timely individualized education on how to monitor themselves for recurrent heart symptoms and what actions to take quickly to potentially prevent another event. Cardiac rehabilitation offers this education, yet only about 15% of women that qualify actually attend. By developing an online educational program to deliver individualized education to women soon after their heart attack, we hope to reach women who would otherwise not attend a structured educational program after a heart attack, including those from rural settings. Through this usability study, our team converted our face-to-face educational intervention that was previously delivered in women’s homes to an online format. We also added an electronic symptom diary available by computer, tablet, or smart phone to enable women to recognize symptom changes (should they occur) to promptly communicate changes to their cardiac care team. Women from focus groups provided feedback that was used iteratively by our team to refine the product that will be tested in a randomized clinical trial starting this summer. Ultimately, we believe early recognition of recurrent symptoms and timely communication to the care team may prevent recurrent heart attack.”