Meharry To Open Women’s Research Clinic

Meharry Medical College is opening a new center this week devoted to research on women’s health, specifically that of minority women.

Health disparity research has usually focused on access to care, since minorities are more likely to be uninsured or have trouble getting to a doctor.

But director Valerie Montgomery Rice says the Center for Women’s Health Research wants to move beyond the access issue, to looking at how diseases affect racial groups differently.

“Women of color don’t tend to develop osteoporosis at a higher rate than Caucasian women. And so we’re studying osteoporosis’ development in both Caucasian women and women of color. And what we’re trying to determine is what is it that protects the woman of color from developing osteoporosis that doesn’t protect the Caucasian woman.”

Rice says African American women have the highest death rates from breast cancer, and she says black women could be responding differently to the standard cancer treatments.

The 4-million dollar center, opening Thursday, will house several clinical trials already going on at Meharry.