Jill Biden stresses advancing women’s health research during UIC visit

First lady Jill Biden traveled to the University of Illinois at Chicago Thursday to tout a White House initiative to expand research on women’s health issues that include menopause.

Biden was joined by actress Halle Berry in speaking about the historical lack of investment in women’s health research nationwide.

The visit comes during an election year in which women’s health issues continue to be a hot-button political issue pushed by Democrats due to the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that sent the issue of legalized abortion to the states, and the importance of women, particularly suburban women, to the election’s outcome.

In a roundtable conversation at UIC, Biden and Berry were joined by Democratic U.S. Reps. Lauren Underwood of Naperville and Robin Kelly of Matteson, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and UIC graduate students.

“Every woman will be affected by menopause, yet there’s a stunning lack of information about how to manage and treat its symptoms,” Biden said during the discussion.

Berry said she became passionate about menopause as a political issue after finding that the options her doctor provided for treating her own symptoms were “just not good enough.”

“I think money needs to be raised … so that every woman has an opportunity to get quality premium care and not just told you have to just white-knuckle it, that it will eventually pass,” Berry said.

The White House launched its Initiative on Women’s Health Research in November to allocate federal and private investments toward the issue.

During the roundtable talk, the first lady stressed President Joe Biden’s support of the initiative.

“That’s what he does,” she said. “He learns about a problem and then he gets to work tackling it. He doesn’t waste any time.”

The Biden reelection campaign repeatedly stopped in Illinois and Chicago last year, an indication of the administration’s concern about motivating voters ahead of the November election even in a solidly blue state.

UIC is working to add to the existing body of information on menopause through its long-standing Center for Research on Women and Gender. Among research underway is a search for links between estrogen levels and brain health and determining specific impacts of menopausal symptoms on women of color.

Pauline Maki, a UIC professor of psychiatry, psychology, and obstetrics and gynecology, called the presidential interest in women’s health concerns ranging from migraines to heart attacks a “game changer.”

Maki said while there has been a lack of information about menopause treatment, the issue has recently drawn more attention through publicity including a pharmaceutical commercial in last year’s Super Bowl and a New York Times article that went viral.

“Women are demanding that we do better,” she said. “Half of the population goes through this. Shouldn’t we have a firm scientific understanding of what happens to these bodies? What happens to their brains? Because without that, they can’t get the personalized care that they need.”

Chicago Tribune’s Rick Pearson contributed.

ostevens@chicagotribune.com