Jillian Baker is the 2025-2026 recipient of the A. Regula Herzog Young Investigators Fund, an award designed to support research and training for junior researchers on women and aging. The Herzog Fund is part of the ISR Next Generation Awards from the Institute for Social Research. Jillian is excited to further her research on how intimate partner violence influences aging trajectories for women.
“Menstruation remains a subject cloaked in silence and associated with taboos, even within the realm of scientific inquiry. Lack of dialogue about menstruation, particularly about the changes in bleeding patterns as women approach menopause, leads to women’s lack of knowledge about what is normal.”
Congratulations to Center Doctoral Student Jiaxin Wu, MPH, on her first publication as a lead author in Seminars in Reproductive Medicine.
“Female reproductive aging often affects women's emotional, physical, and physiological well-being. Ovarian aging is characterized by fluctuations in reproductive hormones and determines the age at which menopause occurs. Understanding potentially modifiable factors that influence this process is essential for addressing health disparities, improving quality of life, and informing relevant public health strategies. ”
“We are finding exploitative conditions that are unique for women farmworkers around issues of sexual harassment, exposures during pregnancy, challenges with obtaining and having access to proper hygiene and sanitation, particularly during menstruation, and also really important aspects of work-life balance and child care issues that women farmworkers in particular face-” — Alexis J. Handal, PhD, MPH (Co-Study Lead, Michigan Farmworker Project).
“Our data suggests that women with higher blood concentrations of PFOA and PFOS reached menopause earlier … than those with low exposure. This is equivalent to the effect of cigarette smoke, a known reproductive toxicant, where we compared current smokers and nonsmokers.”
“We found that Black and Hispanic women had a higher risk of having surgical menopause... and we found that hypertension occurred about five years earlier, and metabolic outcomes such as diabetes and insulin resistance about 11 years earlier for Black and Hispanic women versus white women.’”
The SWAN Multi-Pollutant Study (MPS) was initiated in 2016 to examine health effects of multiple environmental chemical exposures, including perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine pesticides, polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), metals, phenols, phthalates, and organophosphate pesticide among midlife women. Funded through two R01 grants by the National Institute of Environmental Health and Sciences (NIEHS), the SWAN MPS specifically investigates 1) obesity, type-2 diabetes and related metabolic endpoints; and 2) reproductive health including sex steroid hormones, age at menopause and ovarian aging).
Now in its 30th year, the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation is a multi-site, multi-ethnic longitudinal, study designed to examine the health — physical, biological, psychological and social changes — of women during the midlife and as they age. The resulting research helps scientists, health care providers and women learn how mid-life experiences affect health and quality of life during the midlife and as they age.
The Michigan Farmworker Project (MFP) is a community-engaged project that aims to provide a deeper understanding of the complex working and living conditions of migrant and seasonal farmworkers in the state of Michigan and the relationship with health outcomes in this population. The MFP seeks to identify indicators of labor exploitation in farmworkers and relate this understanding to farmworker’s psychosocial, occupational and environmental risk factors as well as gaps in service provision and recommendations from farmworkers themselves to address their current working and living conditions.