Jacobs Institute - Ortho-McNeil Research Grant Available

April 3, 1998 -- The Jacobs Institute of Women's Health in Washington, DC is accepting applications for the 1999 Jacobs Institute - Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical Scholar in Women's Health Care grant. The annual award of $30,000 is intended to support research on the financing and delivery of health services for women. Research is sought that takes into account the changing health care environment; the unmet need for primary and preventive health services; the historic lack of research on women's health; and the importance of social, cultural, legal, economic, and behavioral factors influencing women's health care.

Past recipients of the award include inaugural winner, Janice I. French, CNM, MS, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver, for research to determine the risk of preterm birth associated with specific reproductive tract infections among African-American women. An abstract of her research will be published in an upcoming Womens Health Issues. Barbara A. Bartman, MD, MPH, the 1996 award recipient, of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore recently published her study, "Racial Differences in Estrogen Use Among Middle-Aged and Older Women" in the January/February 1998 issue of Womens Health Issues, the Jacobs Institute's peer-reviewed, scholarly journal.

The 1997 winner, Jennifer B. Unger, PhD, USC Institute for Prevention Research, is continuing research for her project entitled, "Low Rates of Contraceptive Use Among Latina Women: Social, Cultural, and Demographic Correlates" and the 1998 winner, William G. Swartz, MS, Dartmouth Medical School and the New Hampshire State Cancer Registry, will begin work in July to examine the association between occupational demands and the risk of adverse birth outcomes for active duty women of childbearing age in the US Army during the years 1980-1994.

The application deadline for the 1999 award is October 16, 1998. The recipient will be announced in January, 1999, and the award will run from July 1, 1999 to June 30, 2000. One or more manuscripts evolving from the research should be submitted to Women's Health Issues for possible publication.

The research award was jointly established by the Jacobs Institute and Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical in 1994. The Jacobs Institute of Women's Health is a non-profit membership organization that works to advance the knowledge, practice, and understanding of women's health across all concerned disciplines. Health care professionals, social scientists, policy makers, educators, and others look to the Institute for support in clarifying the women's health picture, in setting priorities for change, and in helping to build a health care system more responsive to women's needs.

Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, a member of the Johnson & Johnson family of companies, is a leader in women's health care. The company makes and markets prescription products in several therapeutic categories, including womens health, central nervous system, infectious diseases, pain management, and wound healing.

For more information about the award and for a sample copy of Women's Health Issues, contact the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health, 409 12th Street, SW, Washington, DC 20024-2188, 202-863-4990 or e-mail at [email protected]

# # #

For Immediate Release

For more information contact:
Shannon R. Mouton
The Jacobs Institute
(202) 863-4989