Menopausal women's perceived causes of hot flash.

This descriptive study examined the perceptions of a group of breast cancer survivors about the causes of their hot flashes. Thirty-nine participants readily offered 1,008 individual responses. A content analysis revealed four prominent categories (stress, pain, medication related, and lack of sleep) as well as others (e.g., food related, heat related). In the context of concerns about biomedical approaches to hot flash treatment (specifically hormone therapy [HT]), inconsistent data regarding nonhormonal treatment options, and the many psychosocial factors identified as related to the hot flash experience, the benefits of identifying and addressing women's perceptions in developing effective treatment plans are discussed.

Cultural perceptions and practices around menarche and adolescent menstruation in the United States.

This overview details the persistence of negative characterizations of the menstrual cycle as a feature of the current cultural context in which girls begin menstrual life in the United States. In addition, research on girls' current menstrual attitudes and experiences within this context are reviewed. Current research suggests that girls are not very knowledgeable about menstruation, and that menstrual education continues to provide girls with mixed messages, such as: menstruation is a normal, natural event, but it should be hidden. Girls' attitudes and expectations about menstruation are negatively biased and have been found to contribute to self-objectification, body shame, and lack of agency in sexual decision-making. Although preparation has been found to be associated with more positive menarcheal and menstrual experiences, specificity about what constitutes "good" preparation has not been well articulated. Implications for promoting the menstrual cycle among young girls as a vital sign in service of monitoring their health are discussed.

The menstrual cycle:feminist research from the society for menstrual cycle research.

In this special issue, we present seven articles reporting on cutting-edge research on the menstrual cycle. The authors are all members of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research (SMCR) and the papers were presented at the sixteenth biennial conference of SMCR in Boulder, Colorado in June, 2005. The collection of papers taken as a whole demonstrates unequivocally that context affects not only the discourse surrounding menstruation but also how women actually experience it. We hope readers will enjoy these papers.

Participatory action research to understand and reduce health disparities.

Participatory action research (PAR) is an excellent way to systematically learn about the conditions under which people experience health disparities, what it is like from the perspective of those experiencing such disparities and, even more importantly, how to ameliorate this major public health problem and create a more equitable and effective health care system. This article describes the method of PAR, supports the appropriateness of PAR to learn about and reduce health disparities, and then presents some specific examples of research projects that have employed or are planning to employ PAR. These examples are from the work of several authors of this article, who are members of an interdisciplinary working group that serves as a forum for discussion of issues related to qualitative research methods and facilitates the development of qualitative studies. All of the authors of this article are part of a task force of this working group that is focusing specifically on community outreach with the goal of reducing health disparities within specific communities.