Who Decides? Gender, Medicine, and the Public’s Health
Each year, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University hosts a conference that explores the role of gender in a significant aspect of the human experience. “Who Decides? Gender, Medicine, and the Public’s Health” was the conference in 2014.
At the conference we explored questions of who decides about health-care provision, research funding, and policy making. Gender, culture, economics, politics, and power all affect health-care decisions by individuals and communities in the United States and around the world. We brought together panels of physicians, policymakers, journalists, artists, and academics to discuss the gender dynamics involved in differing definitions of health and disease, the choices made in prioritizing research, and the gaps and opportunities in health policy and access to care as a result of the Affordable Care Act.
Event Videos
Welcoming Remarks and Overview
WELCOMING REMARKS
Lizabeth Cohen, Dean, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study; Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies, Department of History, Harvard University
OVERVIEW OF THE TOPIC
Janet Rich-Edwards, Codirector of the Science Program, Academic Ventures at the Radcliffe Institute; Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University
Defining Health: How Do Health and Disease Get Defined in Societies?
Welcome by Arthur Kleinman, Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University; Professor of Medical Anthropology in Global Health and Social Medicine and Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Victor and William Fung Director of the Asia Center, Harvard University
Jane Ussher, Professor of Women's Health Psychology, Centre for Health Research, School of Medicine, University of Western Sydney
Catherine Panter-Brick, Professor of Anthropology, Health, and Global Affairs, Department of Anthropology, Yale University
Nate Greenslit, Lecturer on the History of Science, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University
Q&A moderated by Arthur Kleinman
Research Priorities: The Impact of Gender on the Scope, Funding, and Analysis of Health Research
Daniel Carpenter, Director of the Social Sciences Program, Academic Ventures at the Radcliffe Institute; Allie S. Freed Professor of Government in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Director of the Center for American Political Studies, Harvard University
Peggy Orenstein, Journalist and Author of "Our Feel-Good War on Breast Cancer," New York Times, April 25, 2013
C. Noel Bairey Merz, Women's Guild Chair in Women's Health, Director of the Women's Heart Center and the Preventive and Rehabilitative Cardiac Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, University of California, Los Angeles; Professor of Medicine, Cedars-Sinai
Barron Lerner, Professor of Medicine, Divisions of General Medicine and the Medical Humanities, New York University Langone Medical Center
Q&A moderated by Daniel Carpenter
Policy and Access to Care: Gender Gaps and Opportunities in the United States
Paula Johnson, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Executive Director, Mary Horrigan Connors Center for Women's Heath and Gender Biology, Brigham and Women's Hospital; Chief, Division of Women's Health, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital
Ruth Katz, Director, Health, Medicine and Society Program, the Aspen Institute; Former Chief Public Health Counsel (Democratic Staff), Committee on Energy and Commerce, US House of Representatives
Louise Slaughter (D-NY), United States Representative
Julie Rovner, Health Policy Correspondent, National Public Radio
Q&A moderated by Paula Johnson
Closing remarks by Janet Rich-Edwards, Codirector of the Science Program, Academic Ventures at the Radcliffe Institute; Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University
Eve Ensler: Introduction to In the Body of the World
Playwright, author, and activist Eve Ensler opens the Radcliffe Institute conference titled "Who Decides? Gender, Medicine, and the Public's Health." In this excerpt, she describes being diagnosed with cancer and reads from the introduction of her book, In the Body of the World: A Memoir of Cancer and Connection (2013). Ensler is a visiting scholar at the Radcliffe Institute.
