WOMEN'S health and wellbeing will be put under the microscope at a community seminar on Wednesday, as speakers from HMRI shine a light on some of the work and discoveries happening within the region.
Hunter researchers Professor Deborah Loxton, Dr Nicole Nathan and Emmalee Ford will explore women's health issues across all age groups and talk about research in areas such as fertility, reproductive health, healthy ageing, and the factors influencing women's long-term health.
Post doctoral research fellow Emmalee Ford said HMRI's seminars were about keeping the community in touch with local research.
Ms Ford said she would discuss her plans to reassess and rebuild the way sex education is taught in schools, as well as talk about the emerging reliance on apps to track fertility cycles that had "exploded in popularity".
"They can be a blessing and a curse," Ms Ford said. "A quote I've heard is 'What do you call people who use apps as contraception? Mothers. Because they don't work'.
"But they are getting better, and they can be useful. They are just not regulated.
"A lot of these apps are misleading because they don't have much cycle variability, so a lot of people could be using these apps thinking they are avoiding pregnancy because of the app.
"They have a lot of potential. But there are a lot of hidden danger zones, and what the app says may not be relevant to you whatsoever."
Ms Ford is planning on working with Family Planning NSW to examine how topics such as fertility are handled in the current sex education curriculum.
"I'll be talking about sexual health education, but specifically why I think fertility education is a really important part of that," she said.
"They are getting some of the messages, but not others.
"In terms of STI rates, most are down, but chlamydia has tripled in the past 10 years.
"But unplanned pregnancies are down 40 per cent in the last 10 years.
"Sex ed in schools is on a 'need to know basis' of what they need to know right now.
"So immediate problems - like contraception, STIs and preventing unwanted pregnancies."
She hopes to give teenagers a better understanding of how their bodies work, what age fertility starts to climb, and then decline, and to know what to look for when something goes wrong.
"It's important people know about their fertility throughout their life," she said. "By knowing how your body works, you are actually empowered to make these decisions for yourself.
"Sex education needs to be changed and it needs to be improved.
"Women's health is not just about a woman's ability to be mothers or not. It's about lifelong health and understanding your body.
"Regardless of your intentions to have children, it's an important part of your life."
At the community seminar on Wednesday, Dr Nicole Nathan will talk about how giving girls the choice to wear pants and shorts at school can have a big impact on their health and wellbeing.
And Professor Deborah Loxton will offer an update on the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health. She will explore factors that influence health among women who are broadly representative of the entire Australian population, having examined the health of more than 158,000 women in four age cohorts for more than 20 years.
The "Sisters, Mothers, Daughters Community Seminar" will be held at the Caves Theatre at HMRI, or online via Zoom or Facebook Live from 6pm to 7pm.
Register for the event via hmri.org.au/events.
