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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Catherine DeLorey, DrPH, Women's Health Institute, 190 Alleghany Street, Boston, MA 02120, 617-739-2923, cdelorey@earthlink.net

Defining ‘older women' is a difficult task. The cohort of women more than 70 years has been in the forefront of changes in how health care is delivered and in the forefront of being recipients of not enough adequate information to make wise health decisions.

These women struggled against having their life transitions, such as pregnancy and menopause, medicalized and transformed into conditions that need treatment. Now, these women are seeing the normal aging process medicalized and viewed as a negative experience.

Presently there is an over-abundance of information from television, magazines, and the internet, all of which often convey the stereotype of aging as an event that needs intervention.

Underlying much of this abundance of information, or misinformation, is the $500 billion pharmaceutical industry. Through the pharmaceutical industry more and more of life is medicalized as the boundaries that define illness are broadened.

How the role of information sources, in particular the pharmaceutical industry, influences the health care of older women through their choices and the choices of their health care providers will be presented. Specific examples of pharmaceutical marketing to women and physicians will be discussed.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant will be able to

• List three examples of how pharmaceutical marketing has influenced women’s health care.
• Describe the quandary of how older women can access appropriate information sources to make informed health decisions.
• Identify three examples of how older women’s health needs are marketed to physicians.

Keywords: Women's Health, Aging

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation