1. What do you see as the greatest challenges facing women's health today?

Giudice: Diseases related to lifestyle -- obesity and inactivity, smoking, environmental chemical exposures -- are among the major challenges to women's health. Access to care is a huge challenge for many women. Low-income women have less access to health care, and that is an issue that needs to be addressed. Another challenge is access to information. Women need information to make wise health-care decisions for themselves and their families, and getting information that is accurate can be a challenge.

2. Why is women's health not only a women's issue; why should this issue matter to men?

Giudice: First of all, women make most of the health-care decisions in the family and their interaction with the health-care system impacts their family's interaction. Secondly, women are the center of the family and healthy mothers and daughters contribute to the overall well-being of a family. Lastly, studying health differences among men and women can also boost men's health.

3. Speaking of gender differences, recent studies have focused on differences in how major diseases -- such as heart disease -- affect men and women. How crucial is this type of work and why should women be treated differently than men?

Giudice: Gender medicine is a brand new field and the work is extremely important. Women are not men who happen to have different hormones -- they have different genes and different disease susceptibilities. Women's Health @ Stanford and the Society for Women's Health Research have initiatives to bring to public attention the discipline of gender medicine. There are several textbooks on sex differences from the physiological perspective, and we know that sex differences can matter in response to drugs, anesthetics, and infections, to name a few.

4. What can the average person do to ensure that the health needs of women are met?

Giudice: Obtain as much information as possible from health-care professionals and reliable resources. A number of organizations provide free information for consumers. Discussion of information that is not clear is also an important part of personal health.

5. What are future plans for Women's Health @ Stanford?

Giudice: We are making available more information about women's cancer. In addition to reproductive and breast cancers there are cancers that women are more susceptible to and there are screening techniques that we want people to be aware of. We're promoting patient education and also professional education. There's a women's health scholarly concentration for med students and a new course on women's health for undergrads and medical students alike. We also offer advanced scholar training through Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health and the Women's Reproductive Health Research Career Development programs. Women's Health @ Stanford will also move into health advocacy and clinical care. We hope to bring more services to women in the community and push the frontiers of science to promote health and prevent and treat disease. In addition, we believe that taking advantage of advances in genomics, proteomics and nanotechnology will advance women's health and gender medicine.