Women's health to get more attention in Ohio.

To help women's health problems gain parity with men's, Ohio now has a state Office of Women's Health Initiatives, thanks to freshman Senator Karen Gillmor. "We must develop programs that once and for all clearly define the differences between the health-care needs of men and women," she said. "As we work together to improve women's health, we will bring down the cost of health care to our citizens and benefit not only Ohio's women, but its men and children." Women's health problems do not receive half the attention men's do, according to Gillmor. Although two-thirds of every health care dollar in the United States is spent on women, only 13.5 percent of the National Institutes of Health budget is spent studying women's health. Also, 48.8 percent of women die from cardiovascular diseases compared with 42.6 percent of men, yet fewer diagnostic workups are performed on women. Although women report more disabling chest pain than men, they are less likely to get cardiac catheterization diagnostic tests. Breast cancer will occur in one out of eight women (compared to one out of 20, 30 years ago), yet survival rates have not changed in two decades, and treatments have not changed significantly. The office will expand existing efforts to bring public and private groups together in Ohio to set the state's women's health-care agenda, identifying problems and coordinating efforts to solve them.

Along with raising more private money to improve research, the office will act as an advocate for women's health concerns and will develop new programs. It will work with and expand existing state government-sponsored programs for intervention, treatment and education of the public on issues such as gender bias in medical research, the effect of poverty and violence on women's health, and chemical dependency in women.

Since passage of Ohio's legislation, California has approved the creation of a similar office aimed at eliminating "gender inequities" in health research for men and women.