Call for papers - Menstrual health education

Guest Editors

HuiJun Chih, PhD, Curtin University, Australia
Sonia Regina Grover, MD, University of Melbourne, Australia

Submission Status: Open | Submission Deadline: 31 December 2024

BMC Public Health is calling for submissions to our Collection on Menstrual health education. Menstruation, despite being a natural process, is often subject to socio-cultural norms that perpetuate discrimination and shame, particularly in middle and low-income countries where stigma surrounding menstruation prevails, leading to misconceptions and limited access to sanitary products and education. This stigma affects the lives of individuals who menstruate, particularly adolescent girls whose school attendance and academic performance are impacted by inadequate menstrual health education and resources. This collection aims to highlight research on menstrual health education involving women, girls, trans, and non-binary individuals who menstruate, in the context of human rights, to educate and raise awareness on sexual and reproductive health and rights, beyond the mere menstrual hygiene management.

New Content Item This Collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 1: No Poverty, SDG 3: Good Health & Well-Being, SDG 4: Quality Education, and SDG 5: Gender Equality.

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Meet the Guest Editors

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HuiJun Chih, PhD, Curtin University, Australia

Dr HuiJun Chih is a senior lecturer and research fellow in the Curtin School of Population Health and Clinical Trials Enabling Platform (CTEP-WA) with expertise in the design of clinical trials and longitudinal studies (including protocol development, sample size and power calculations, randomisation process) as well as analyses of cross-sectional and longitudinal data (including national and international registries data) using both commonly used and complex modelling and machine learning techniques, interpreting the findings in a sensible approach for clinicians and consumers of research evidence, and drafting research publications. Dr Chih has been awarded multi-million-dollar research fundings, several teaching excellence awards, and is a Higher Education Academy (HEA) Senior Fellow. She embeds the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in her teaching of quantitative research methods units, and supervises Honours and PhD students on health-related projects, including wellbeing, women’s health and menstrual health literacy.

Sonia Regina Grover, MD, University of Melbourne, Australia

Prof Sonia Grover is a general gynaecologist and pain medicine specialist with a special interest and expertise in adolescent gynaecology. Sonia has been actively involved in research and education – throughout Australia and internationally. She has helped to foster the development of young womens reproductive health care particularly in Asia Oceania by supporting the training of specialists and the establishment of these services. She has published extensively on topics including young women with special needs and their menstrual management; adolescent and adult women and the optimal management of their menstrual health concerns, pain, heavy bleeding and other associated symptoms. Her efforts to reach women directly to enable them to have better access to information has recently also involved social media.

About the Collection

BMC Public Health is calling for submissions to our Collection on Menstrual health education.

Menstruation is often affected by socio-cultural norms, beliefs and practices that can have a negative impact on individual’s ability to manage their life during menstruation and ultimately on their own wellbeing. Although menstruation is a natural biological occurrence, it continues to be a target for discrimination and humiliation.

In middle and low-income countries, menstruation is still largely surrounded by stigma and shame that lead to misconceptions. Insufficient access to sanitary products and lack of menstrual health education can impact school attendance of adolescent girls and their behavior in class, affecting their attention and comfort, with a negative impact on academic performance.

This collection aims to highlight research on menstrual health education involving women, girls, trans and non-binary individuals who menstruate, in the context of human rights, to educate and raise awareness on sexual and reproductive health and rights, beyond the mere menstrual hygiene management.

This supports a number of Sustainable Development Goals including SDG 1: No Poverty, SDG 3: Good Health & Well-Being, SDG 4: Quality Education, and SDG 5: Gender Equality. For this collection calling for research on Menstrual health education, BMC Public Health welcomes submissions addressing but not limited to:

Community-based interventions to improve menstrual care knowledge, practices, and comfort
School-based educational interventions to increase school attendance during menstruation
Health policies to promote an easy and comprehensive access to menstrual hygiene products
Health care programs to remove shame and stigma from menstruation

Image credit: SewcreamStudio / Stock.adobe.com

There are currently no articles in this collection.

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of original Research Articles. Should you wish to submit a different article type, please read our submission guidelines to confirm that type is accepted by the journal. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "Menstrual health education" from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.