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Reproductive Health and Work

A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Reproductive Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2023) | Viewed by 14303

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Health Research, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4AT, UK
Interests: reproductive health and the work context; occupational health and wellbeing; employee psychological resilience; mixed methodology; workplace interventions; occupational/organisational psychology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

There is increasing interest in the topic of reproductive health and work. Reproductive health includes a variety of topics such as pregnancy, fertility, sexually transmitted diseases, endometriosis, premenstrual syndrome, the menopause and andropause. Both men and women have unique experiences, and some of their symptoms may cause difficulties at work. These may also affect others who work alongside or manage people with difficulties related to reproductive health. Management, both at an individual and organisational level, can be an important step forward. Difficulties associated with reproductive health may otherwise impact various aspects of working life: productivity, sickness absence, presenteeism, or in the longer term, careers and contributions to the economic outputs of society.

There is a growing body of evidence highlighting these experiences and their consequences, and there is recognition of the need both to raise awareness of reproductive health at work and to support employees with difficulties. However, this topic has often been regarded as ‘taboo’, and employees can suffer in silence. This means that they do not ask for or receive the support they need from their employers. More research is being done in this field, and this Special Issue calls for papers that address any aspect of reproductive health in the context of working life.

Articles may be on empirical research, or they may be literature reviews or conceptual papers. They may emerge from many disciplines and concern clinical issues, attitudes, behaviour, as well as management and policy-level considerations. The Special Issue is particularly interested in including papers concerning populations that have traditionally been underreported in research studies (for example, but not confined to, BAME populations and people with disabilities). We wish to see papers that draw practical implications for workplaces, practitioners and policy makers, as well as highlight directions for future research.

Dr. Claire Hardy
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • reproductive health
  • work
  • employment
  • careers
  • occupational health
  • organisational policy

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 337 KiB  
Article
Women’s Health in/and Work: Menopause as an Intersectional Experience
by Kathleen Riach and Gavin Jack
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(20), 10793; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182010793 - 14 Oct 2021
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 4869
Abstract
This paper employs an intersectional lens to explore menopausal experiences of women working in the higher education and healthcare sectors in Australia. Open-text responses from surveys across three universities and three healthcare settings were subject to a multistage qualitative data analysis. The findings [...] Read more.
This paper employs an intersectional lens to explore menopausal experiences of women working in the higher education and healthcare sectors in Australia. Open-text responses from surveys across three universities and three healthcare settings were subject to a multistage qualitative data analysis. The findings explore three aspects of menopause experience that required women to contend with a constellation of aged, gendered and ableist dynamics and normative parameters of labor market participation. Reflecting on the findings, the paper articulates the challenges of menopause as issues of workplace inequality that are rendered visible through an intersectional lens. The paper holds a range of implications for how to best support women going through menopause at work. It emphasizes the need for approaches to tackle embedded and more complex modes of inequality that impact working women’s menopause, and ensure that workforce policy both protects and supports menopausal women experiencing intersectional disadvantage. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reproductive Health and Work)
16 pages, 364 KiB  
Article
Blood Work: Managing Menstruation, Menopause and Gynaecological Health Conditions in the Workplace
by Katherine Sang, Jen Remnant, Thomas Calvard and Katriona Myhill
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(4), 1951; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18041951 - 17 Feb 2021
Cited by 13 | Viewed by 8452
Abstract
The menstrual cycle remains neglected in explorations of public health, and entirely remiss in occupational health literature, despite being a problematic source of gendered inequalities at work. This paper proposes the new concept of blood work to explain the relationship between menstruation (and [...] Read more.
The menstrual cycle remains neglected in explorations of public health, and entirely remiss in occupational health literature, despite being a problematic source of gendered inequalities at work. This paper proposes the new concept of blood work to explain the relationship between menstruation (and associated gynaecological health conditions) and employment for women and trans/non-binary people. We build on and extend health and organisational literature on managing bodies at work by arguing that those who experience menstruation face additional work or labour in the management of their own bodies through the menstrual cycle. We discuss how this additional labour replicates problematic elements that are identifiable in public health initiatives, in that it is individualised, requiring individual women and trans/non-binary people to navigate unsupportive workplaces. We present findings from an analysis of qualitative survey data that were completed by 627 participants working in higher education, revealing that employees’ blood work comprises distinct difficulties that are related to the management of painful, leaking bodies, access to facilities, stigma, and balancing workload. We suggest developing supportive workplaces and public health policies, which refocus the responsibility for accessible, equal workplaces that accommodate menstruating employees, and those with gynaecological health conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reproductive Health and Work)
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