During a thirteen-month period between 2005 and 2006, over 69,000 people across Ohio and West Virginia gave samples of blood and answered surveys as part of the C8 Health Project, a medical monitoring program studying chemical pollutants. Researchers with the C8 Science Panel then analyzed the data from the C8 Health Project. Over the next eight years, the C8 Health Project and C8 Science Panel operated jointly as a scientific institution formed through a court order to determine what ill health effects a chemical called perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, can cause to the human body. The C8 Science Panel determined that there is a probable link between PFOA exposure and pregnancy-induced high blood pressure, testicular cancer, high cholesterol, and several other diseases. The work of the C8 Health Project and C8 Science Panel led to a personal-injury settlement against the DuPont chemical company, shaped public policy, and influenced future investigations into the health effects of similar chemicals.

In 1994, researchers at the US National Institutes of Health, or NIH, started the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation, or SWAN, to examine the bodily changes that occur in US women during middle age. Many of those changes are a result of menopause, which is the time twelve months after a female has had their last menstrual period. In the late 1990s, menopause was under-researched, and studies that did exist were based on participants who were not representative of the whole US population. SWAN investigators pushed for the inclusion of various racial and ethnic groups in their study to gain a broader understanding of menopause and aging. In particular, the researchers aimed to explore how symptoms of menopause differ among women, how those symptoms change over time, and how they can lead to certain health risks later in life. SWAN was among the first long-term studies to use a large, racially and ethnically diverse group of participants to study women’s transition into menopause and how it differs from chronological aging.

In 1850, a group of physicians founded the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, hereafter the WMCP, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Initially called the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania until 1867, it was one of the first medical colleges that granted women medical degrees in the US during the nineteenth century when many male physicians opposed women entering the medical field, and the few practicing women physicians did not receive any formal medical education. During that time, many women avoided seeking treatment for various health issues because they did not want a male physician to examine them. The WMCP created more formally trained female physicians that were able to care for female patients. It also allowed the admission of women of color, leading to some of the first Native American, Japanese, and Black women in the US earning a medical degree. The WMCP helped increase the number of female physicians in the US, which increased the representation of women in medicine and, in turn, expanded and improved women’s access to healthcare.