About the Committee on Women's Rights (COWR)

The APHA Committee on Women's Rights is a standing committee established in the bylaws of the APHA Constitution. The Committee is comprised of members appointed by the APHA President. The committee’s core focus is on promoting national and global policies that improve the status of women, girls and transgender females. The Committee encourages policy and advocacy strategies that positively affect women’s lives, particularly those policies that impact women’s health access, health equity, cultural diversity, self-determination, respect, education and meaningful employment.   

The goals of the APHA COWR are:

• To improve the quality of life for all women
• To ensure access to healthcare and appropriate healthcare services
• To improve services that focus on health promotion and injury/illness prevention
• To promote and protect the physical and social environment
• To preserve and protect the rights of all women
• To promote equal rights and opportunities for women in health careers

To learn more about the APHA Committee on Women’s Rights, please visit https://www.apha.org/about-apha/governance/apha-committees/committee-on-womens-rights.

The APHA Committee on Women’s Rights invites abstracts that explore the economic, social and cultural factors that impacts the rights and health of women and interventions addressing these factors. We are also very interested in abstracts that address potentially scalable interventions that address the social and ethical challenges to ensuring women's rights and health over the life course. Abstracts may address women in a domestic or global context. We are particularly interested in abstracts addressing sexual minorities, racial/ethnic minorities, women in rural communities and women on college campuses.   

The Committee on Women’s Rights program at the Annual Meeting is an opportunity for presentation and discussion of many topics affecting the health and well-being of women, particularly those that may not receive sufficient attention in other sections. The Program includes both oral and poster sessions and topics include:

• Community Engagement; Rebuilding trust in women’s health and rights
  
• Diversity, Inclusion and Stakeholder Participation in Women’s Health
  
• Equity, Ethics and Rights of Women in Public Health
  
• Gender Bias in Public Health Research
  
• Gender Responsive Mental Health Interventions
  
• Policies and Advocacies on Women’s Health and Wellbeing
  
• Reproductive Rights
  
• Restoring Justice in Women’s Health
  
• Social Media and Women Health Rights
  
• Topics Related to Sexual/Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Women in Rural Communities and Congregate Settings
  
• Violence Against Women and Interventions
  
• Women’s Health and Rights in Climate Change
  
• Other Topic Related to Women's Rights and Public Health
  

Session topics do not reflect the precise content of the final program. The final program will be based upon the abstracts we receive, peer-reviewed evaluations, program theme, and diversity of topics. If you do not see your topic listed here, please submit it under the 'Other Topics' session. If you feel that the topic of your abstract does not fit within the Committee on Women’s Rights Program, please consider submitting to the Women’s Caucus.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS

Abstracts are limited to 250 words. Please do not include citations in the text of the abstract. All abstracts must be submitted with at least two learning objectives in the proper APHA format (i.e., “By the end of the session, the participant will be able to…”). Please check the abstract title (only capitalize the first letter and proper nouns per APHA guidelines) and text for spelling and grammatical errors. Please do not include your name or contact information in the text portion as this prohibits blind peer review. Lastly, all abstracts should contain sufficient details to fully evaluate the scientific and/or conceptual value of the work rather than alluding to what “will be” included in the presentation. Abstracts that do not adhere to these requirements will not be reviewed. Please check with the program planner if you have any questions.

Review Guidelines for Abstracts

Peer review of abstracts is blinded. Abstracts will be peer reviewed based on the following criteria:

Innovation: Innovative information/cutting edge/topic not addressed elsewhere

Completeness: How complete is the described research/project/concept, supporting data or conceptualization of work

Global Focus: International focus welcome

Political Focus: How does the research or concept translate to political agendas

Policy Relevance: How does research or concept influence or have the potential to influence policy

Overall Relevance: How well the abstract relates to important women’s rights issues

Advancement: Extent to which the work described has the potential to inform and advance the science of ensuring women’s rights

Quality: Quality of methodology, supporting data, study design, analysis or conceptualization of work

Overall Clarity: Clearly written and conveys essence of research

Overall Impression: Overall impression of the described research/project/concept

Presenting Abstracts at APHA

Only listed authors who are both APHA members and registered for the Annual Meeting may present accepted work (unless specifically invited by COWR and the program planner). Individuals should submit an abstract only if they are committed to presenting the paper or poster themselves or to finding a substitute willing to register, attend the meeting, and present the paper or poster instead. Invitations to present will be withdrawn should authors of award abstracts be unable to present at the Annual Meeting. APHA and the Committee on Women’s Rights are unable to provide financial support for author attendance at the Annual Meeting.

For program questions, contact the program planner listed below.

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Ready?

Program Planner Contact Information:

Anna La Manna, MPH, MSW
anna.lamanna@mimh.edu


and

Hanna Idriess - D, MD, MPH, MBA
hidriess@healthmaxima.org