Government has excluded women over 55 from survey on reproductive health and the menopause!

[IwantToRetire]

Older women are furious after being excluded from a major government survey about reproductive health.

The Department of Health announced on Thursday a 'landmark' online questionnaire covering every aspect of reproductive health from periods and contraception to pregnancy and the menopause.

Ministers said they wanted to hear about the experiences of women across England, including the challenges of going through the menopause at work, to shape future policy.

But details of the survey revealed it is only open to women aged between the ages of 16 and 55.

The Women's Rights Network campaign group called on health ministers to address the oversight.

It said: 'Potentially useful survey - but doesn't want the views of women over 55.
'All that experience of reproductive health is apparently not important or needed at all - even in respect of menopause. Utterly bizarre.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12498099/Fury-women-age-55-excluded-major-government-survey-reproductive-health.html

Surely women over 55 are able to contribute more than younger women on the basis that they have probably not only given birth and gone through the menopause. ie they have the lived experience.

How did anyone, ie whoever was delegated to actual create the survey even begin to think that excluding older women was logical.

Does anyone know what the age cut-off for being prescribed HRT for the first time is?

Is it around 55 by any chance?

Just wondering if the purpose of the survey might be around prescribing HRT to employees so that they can be “productive” for their employers, and therefore excludes anyone that the NHS currently deems too old to be safely prescribed HRT. Just speculation based on the comments made about the focus of the questions.

I was prescribed HRT over 60. So no, 55 is not the age limit.

Women are expected to work into our 60s, it's not uncommon to go through menopause in late 50s and menopuase symptoms last for several years after last period. I cannot imagine why a suvey which claims to include menopause would stop so young.

I've just checked as I couldn't remember as it has been sliding up, but the current retirement age for women is 66. So that means that they aren't interested, assuming its more about women having "women's problems" and taking too much time off from work, of the last 11 years of work.

Where because of menopause, or reproductive health issues, a woman's health could still be impacted.

Honestly all the fanfare in the media about a "landmark" survey and they come out with this uneducated, pointless exercise.

And in line with my earlier remark, apart from the distortion of truth by trans training, I really do believe we are entering an era, where despite more people having university education, we are actually becoming more stupid. Added to which people who think the internet is a source of knowledge and truth.

Did anyone ever watch a film called Idiocracy? Not something I would normally watch but thought in its crude way it illustrated the direction the west at least, is heading.

The survey is nonsensical. Looks like they got the work experience kid to construct it.
TBF the work experience kid might have done a better job, I suppose.

Sorry if this has been said upthread but have just reread intro page and it says the survey:

... is being delivered by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care.

They should be ashamed of themselves, although I am daily struct by how sexist the delivery of health is by the NHS.

There is an article abouot this on the University web site but cant quite identify which department is responsible for this time wasting venture https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/expert-opinion/its-high-time-we-end-taboo-and-make-womens-health-priority

Sorry I am back again, but on the university page it says:

In our pilot study, we also found that some groups were under-represented so we are working closely with Birth Companions, Brook, the LGBT Foundation and Race Equality Foundation to widen our reach.

So no doubt there will be lots of contributions from trans women experiencing difficulty in getting pregnant.

But of course given the terrible statistic about Black Women's experience of childbirth and higher level of mortality, really important that their contribution is encouraged.

Thanks Amryllis.

It was just speculation on my part, looking for a potential rationale.

There’s no rational justification for excluding women who are of an age at which:

• they still have (up to) 12 years to reach state pension age, therefore are still in the workforce;
• a not negligible percentage will still be menstruating;
• many will be in the full throes of the peri menopause experience;
• the rest will have completed the menopause in the previous decade and may still be experiencing post-menopause symptoms;
• many may still be on HRT.

As there is no rational explanation, sadly, what’s left is either ignorance (of the above facts which make the survey relevant to them) or bigotry (women over 55 are irrelevant).

Having completed it and seen the question on 'Womens Health Hubs' I suspect that the purpose is to generate data to suggest that there needs to be a new network of such Hubs, branded with the NHS I'd and provided by the private sector.
Nice predictable business with at least 48% of the population in scope, and a known demand....

Colour me unsurprised when the fanfare announcement is made.......

I'm astounded how bad it is. I have some relevant professional expertise here and I'd have seen this as a first year PhD student kind of effort. And this is supposed to be a flagship national survey?!

Just emailed my female MP over this.

And sent a message to the survey using the ‘problem’ link at the end.

Dr Rebecca French is Professor of Sexual and Reproductive Health Research.

https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/aboutus/people/french.rebecca

This page says that she has worked in this area for 30 years, which implies that she must be at least 50 so it's surprising that she thinks women over 55 aren't worth bothering with.

The other researcher mentioned on the survey page, Dr Melissa Palmer, seems to be someone who works for her. She may be the one responsible for the survey - it says on the survey page to contact her "if you have a concern about this study" (although contact details are given for both of them).

I thought the survey construction was terrible too. I had the same problem as @Libelil being asked the questions about my employer with no N/A answer when I’m self-employed, but also I told them I’d had a hysterectomy and then they asked if I was planning to have more children! (Though the hospital that actually did my hysterectomy wanted me to sign something to say I wasn’t pregnant when I went for a scan 🙄). It’s not difficult to compose a survey with the sort of logic that means you’re not asked stupid questions, at this point I wondered whether the survey was a hoax! Shockingly bad.

https://online1.snapsurveys.com/interview/3e9e0d85-378d-40dd-a701-f353e02fbac1

The survey is open for comments. I've made some :)

I think this is an earlier survey ....

@IwantToRetire - oh, sorry!

No I am sorry - you were right.

Have just gone to the link via the .gov.uk web site and it takes you to ...
https://online1.snapsurveys.com/interview/3e9e0d85-378d-40dd-a701-f353e02fbac1

I was confused because is says survey launched today (8/9/23) but the survey date is 7/7/23

Oh dear, I may not be as hot as I was over the weekend, but my brain is fried.

Fucks sake! And WTAF and all the fucks actually. Should all of us over 55 just fucking kill ourselves then?

Also, many of us over 55 have HAD KIDS! We have experience and knowledge and this is so so insulting.

Just completed it and also found it very bad. As a PP said, it had no N/A option for when you're self employed and a sole trader. I don't have colleagues but clients and so I can't just take time off to cope with peri symptoms but can't explain this in the survey. I'm about to write an email complaining about the age limit and the poor structure to the survey.

I complained on the actual survey about the survey. I guess it’s the commissioners who need the complaints though rather than the people who drafted the poor survey in the first place.

I've just filled this survey but when I submitted it at the end rather than say "thanks for completing the survey" the page just evaporated and now I'm wondering if it submitted correctly. Did anyone get an acknowledgment of completion at the end?

I just got the same. It just disappeared. No idea if it submitted.

Really stupid questions, some of them. I don't understand why the miscarriage question suddenly asked about the past year when all the others were 'Have you ever...?' And the one about how quickly one can get contraception was just worded a bit oddly. Also, there was no answer to the baby question for 'I'd like another one but am not going to try' and the reason being 'concerned about advanced parental age affecting the child'. I kind of bodged an answer but it didn't feel what I really wanted to say.

The whole thing felt a bit off. I agree with others it feels like a young student has put it together.

I just got the same. It just disappeared. No idea if it submitted.

I think that's reassuring. That must be how it ends. I was expecting an acknowledgement or something.

Veracity23
I'm still reeling from a query in my day job this week from someone who really should have known better. They were wondering why they couldn't find any evidence about "cisgender women" in a database of papers from medical journals.

Er, because most doctors and trained medical scientist types understand actual biology, you twit. Plus if they trust you most clinicians will make it pretty apparent they haven't swallowed the NHS management Comms sponsored late to the party over fashionable EDI KoolAid. So, you know, just using women/female to search is more likely to retrieve accurate and relevant evidence.

I saw that query and rolled my eyes - nobody replied to the poor he/him that I saw. I was very tempted to say what you just did but couldn't face the possible backlash. Hopefully he got some off list feedback. I still don't understand why libraries are so captured.