Calling All Nurses Ages 22 to 42: Harvard Needs You!

If you’re younger than 60 – and there are a whole lot of you – you will not have participated in the big Nurses’ Health Study out of Harvard, but chances are you’ve heard of it.

I call it the “big” study because the number of participants dwarfs all other studies. More than 238,000 nurses make up the two groups of women. With money from the National Institutes of Health, researchers at Harvard began more than three decades ago to investigate the potential long-term consequences of the use of oral contraceptives, which hundreds of millions of
women were taking. Registered nurses were chosen as volunteers because investigators felt that, with our medical backgrounds, it was good bet that we’d be accurate in our responses and that we wouldn’t drop out.

So in 1976, about 122,000 nurses out of the 170,000 who were contacted by mail responded – an incredible number by research standards. Every two years these nurses receive questionnaires about diseases and smoking, hormone use and menopausal status.

In 1992, at the request of some nurses, quality-of-life questions were added. In 1989, Nurses’ Health Study II was formed. It began studying the effects of oral contraceptives, diet and lifestyle risk factors in a group of younger nurses whose number eventually totaled more than 116,500.

Now you younger nurses will have your chance at joining the mother of all lifestyle studies. Harvard is launching the Nurses’ Health Study III to examine how new hormone preparations, dietary patterns and occupational exposures impact women’s health. Researchers are looking for female RNs and LPNs/LVNs ages 22 to 42 from across the country. Researchers will save money on postage this time around because the study will be entirely Web-based. They’ll be looking at fertility and pregnancy, and there will be greater focus on adolescent diet and breast cancer risk. Another goal is to include women from more diverse ethnic backgrounds than are in the two earlier groups.

The initial mailing went out about 6 months ago to one million nurses. If you received an invitation and haven’t yet acted, re-consider. Follow your cohorts that went before you because by taking just a few minutes every few years, you’ll contribute to a body of knowledge that will be of immense help to your daughters and sisters and grandchildren.

To read more about the study, visit http://www.channing.harvard.edu/nhs/.

The Nurses’ Health Studies are among the largest and longest running investigations of factors that influence women’s health. Started in 1976 and expanded in 1989, the information provided by the 238,000 dedicated nurse-participants has led to many new insights on health and disease. While the prevention of cancer is still a primary focus, the study has also produced
landmark data on cardiovascular disease, diabetes and many other conditions. Most importantly, these studies have shown that diet, physical activity and other lifestyle factors can powerfully promote better health.