KLAR - Women's health, menopause and working life

Health & research

Oct 25

Who: University of Bergen

What: Research program - researching menopause among women

Where: Bergen

Menopause often hits women at the height of their careers, making menopause not only a concern for the physical and emotional wellbeing of women, but also the economic wellbeing of employers and nations. An estimated 30% of women in perimenopause/menopause have significant health problems that reduce their quality of life and work capacity.

There is a wide range for age of onset, with some women losing their menstrual cycle in their 40s and others in their late 50s. Each year, 27,500 Norwegian women enter the perimenopause/menopause. An estimated 1.1 billion women throughout the world will be postmenopausal by 2025. Menopause is estimated to cost American women 1.8 mill dollar each year in lost working time.

The overall aim of KLAR is to improve health, health care, and sustainable work participation among women with menopausal ailments. With funding from Grieg Foundation, the research project will be conducted by researchers at the Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Bergen.

Women's biological life course can be characterized by fine-tuned transitions that gradually prepare women to bear children and then move into a life phase where this is not a task. The life phase 45 to 55 years has the potential for great capacity, great commitment, and career development.

For many women, the career potential is not utilized due to a lack of knowledge about the health problems associated with the perimenopause/menopause, as well as a lack of research into the diagnosis and treatment of the health problems. Previous studies have suggested that how women experience perimenopause and menopause, is shaped by their sociocultural, institutional, and linguistic contexts. Perimenopause and menopause appear to have the potential of becoming a challenging life phase for women.

According to NOU 2023: 5 (Norwegian Official Report), perimenopause appears to be surrounded by silence and stigma in the Norwegian society.

Health problems can vary from depression, muscle and joint pain, sleep problems, headaches, general fatigue, reduced lung capacity and extreme hot flashes. The ailments are often defined as non-specific and contribute significantly to women's sickness absence and disability pension. Norwegian working life is not aware of the significant loss of resourceful women who choose to leave the workforce, reduce their employment rate, are on sick leave for shorter or longer periods due to ailments related to menopause.

There is a need for increased knowledge about the connection between menopause and women's sickness absence and exit from working life.

The Women's Health Committee's report (NOU 2023:5 "The big difference") points out that more research is needed to determine the role menopause symptoms play in women dropping out of working life at this age. The research project "KLAR - Women's health, menopause and working life" will address this knowledge gap during the next four years.

To improve health, health care, and sustainable work participation among women with menopausal complaints this project has an interdisciplinary team with different methodological specialties and professional competences and an interest in women’s health.

To gain more knowledge of menopausal health problems and the treatment provided, we will link the unique Norwegian health- and welfare registries and examine diagnose-, medication-, health care- and sickness absence patterns among women in menopausal age compared to younger and older women. To better meet women’s needs, we will gain multilevel insight into barriers and facilitators of health-promoting care and sustainable work participation. These examinations will involve interviews of menopausal women, health-care providers, managers, and the study of health care policy documents. We are particularly interested in learning more about how work life meets women with severe complaints and what can be done to promote sustainable work participation.

Finally, studies report that educating menopausal women about health complaints will improve health, wellbeing, and work capacity. Therefore, we will test an innovative and user-friendly intervention to empower women to take control of their menopausal health and improve the patient – provider setting.

‘Reframing’ menopause. A major task of this project is to facilitate distribution of high-quality information about menopause to women, health care providers, work-life, policy makers and the public. This task is a necessary condition for women being able to manage their menopausal transition, and actively seek treatment.