The Faculty’s new Women’s Health Network gets off to a flying start

Some initiatives articulate an unmet need.

In 2025, 50 researchers signed a letter to the dean expressing their wish to establish what has since been named the Women’s Health Network. The proposal quickly attracted attention – also outside the faculty, where Dagens Medicin, among others, covered the petition.

The network has now been established and is open for registration.

Learning together

“We’re up and running now, and that’s significant. Women’s health has long been underprioritized in research. There is simply so much we don’t know,” says Associate Professor Dorte Rytter from the Department of Public Health.

She is co-chair in the steering committee, which aims to bring together researchers at Aarhus University with external stakeholders such as companies, regional authorities, and municipalities - meet the steering committee here.

Initially, the ambition is to create an overview of competencies, projects, and available data.

“Many of us conduct research in this field, but we don’t necessarily know each other’s areas of expertise. Once we map that out, I believe something big and meaningful will emerge – and that we can make a huge difference,” says Dorte Rytter.

Who can join?

The network is open to all researchers across departments and disciplines.

It naturally makes sense to participate if you work with diseases that affect women or with female biology. However, researchers who study diseases and health conditions that present differently in women and men are also highly relevant to the network.

The same applies to researchers with anthropological, social science, or health science perspectives on how women are treated within the healthcare system.

“There’s a reason why so much research has historically focused on men. It’s not necessarily because it was considered more important, but also because it is methodologically easier. Men do not become pregnant and do not have a menstrual cycle that must be taken into account,” says Dorte Rytter.

“You are very welcome to contact someone from the steering committee or attend the first events. There’s no obligation in signing up for the mailing list and stopping by to see whether it’s relevant,” she adds.

Bring your own perspective

The new network works with biological, clinical, public health, and social science perspectives on women’s life course. With 50 researchers having signed the initial call to establish a research network at the Faculty of Health focused on women’s health, membership already has a strong foundation.

Deputy State Medical Examiner and Associate Professor at the Department of Forensic Medicine, Ole Ingemann Hansen, is part of the steering committee for two reasons:

“It’s a combination of my own interest and my desire to highlight the department’s perspective on women’s health,” he explains.

For many years, he has worked with rape victims and their legal protection and treatment.

“Most of the individuals we see are women. That also applies in cases of intimate partner violence and intimate partner homicide,” he says.

Whatever your interest in women’s health may be, you can join the network here.

 

Contact

Associate Professor Dorte Rytter
Aarhus University, Department of Public Health
Phone: +45 60 38 12 98
Email: dr@ph.au.dk

Deputy State Medical Examiner and Associate Professor Ole Ingemann Hansen
Aarhus University, Department of Forensic Medicine
Phone: +45 60 20 27 82
Email: oih@forens.au.dk

 

This article has been machine translated