TY - JOUR
T1 - Cyprus Women's Health Research (COHERE) initiative
T2 - determining the relative burden of women's health conditions and related co-morbidities in an Eastern Mediterranean population
AU - Hocaoglu, M. B.
AU - Gurkas, S.
AU - Karaderi, T.
AU - Taneri, B.
AU - Erguler, K.
AU - Barin, B.
AU - Bilgin, E. M.
AU - Eralp, G.
AU - Allison, M.
AU - Findikli, N.
AU - Boynukalin, K.
AU - Bahceci, M.
AU - Naci, H.
AU - Vincent, K.
AU - Missmer, S. A.
AU - Becker, C. M.
AU - Zondervan, K. T.
AU - Rahmioglu, N.
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank all women volunteering to take part in our study and our research assistants who are conducting baseline recruitment in field namely, Ecem Fidan, Senay Gokcebel, Kamil Ipciler, Asya Koparan, Cise Mis, Elif Okur, Ibrahim Ozgenc, Ismail Ozgenc, Zisan Pekri, Pembe Savas, Melis Tarhan, Ebru Yasti. Moreover, we would like to acknowledge all the administrative staff from University of Oxford and Eastern Mediterranean University who helped with putting together the necessary protocols. Moreover, we are grateful to the CoHERS civil society members for their support of the project in spreading the word and aiding in reaching women all around Northern Cyprus. Tugce Karaderi was supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research (Grant no. NNF17OC0027594 and NNF14CC0001).
Funding Information:
CMB declares that he is part of a scientific collaboration between Oxford University and Bayer Healthcare Ltd. for the purpose of drug target identification in endometriosis. He holds/has held research grants from Bayer Healthcare, Volition Rx, MDNA Life Sciences and Roche Diagnostics and has in recent years been a consultant for Abbvie Inc. and Roche Diagnostics. KTZ declares that she has scientific collaborations outside the submitted work with Bayer Healthcare, MDNA Life Sciences, Roche Diagnostics Inc., and Volition Rx; and is a Board member (Secretary) of the World Endometriosis Society, Research Advisory Board member of Wellbeing of Women, UK (research charity) and Chair of the Research Directions Working Group, World Endometriosis Society. KV declares that she has received research funding from Bayer AG, and Honoraria and Consultancy fees from Bayer AG, Grunenthal GmBH and AbbeVie. MB declares that he is the founder of Bahceci Health Group in Turkey. He has also made a generous donation to support the project. NR declares that she is the founding president of Cyprus Women’s Health Research Society in Northern Cyprus. SAM has scientific collaborations that are not related to the submitted work with AbbVie, Inc., as well as these academic and professional society affiliations: Scientific Director of the Boston Center for Endometriosis, Treasurer of the World Endometriosis Society, Secretary of the World Endometriosis Research Foundation, and Chair of the Endometriosis Special Interest Group of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s). 2019.
PY - 2019/4/3
Y1 - 2019/4/3
N2 - Background: There is lack of population level data on prevalence and distribution of common benign women's health conditions such as endometriosis, uterine fibroids, polycystic ovary syndrome from the Eastern Mediterranean region despite their significant consequences on quality of life. In particular, there is complete absence of any health statistics from Northern Cyprus, which is an emerging region in Europe. The Cyprus Women's Health Research (COHERE) Initiative is the first large-scale cross-sectional study in the region, aiming to determine the relative burden of benign women's health conditions and related co-morbidities in women living in Northern Cyprus.Methods: The COHERE Initiative is a cross-sectional study aiming to recruit 8000 women aged 18-55 years and residing for at least the past 5 years in Northern Cyprus. The study is composed of two main steps: (1) Baseline recruitment, including (i) completion of a detailed health questionnaire, which is an expanded version of the World Endometriosis Research Foundation (WERF) Endometriosis Phenome Harmonisation Project (EPHect) standardised questionnaire, including questions on demographics, menstrual history, hormone use, pregnancy, pain (pelvic pain, bladder and bowel pain, migraine), medical history, family history of illnesses, medication use, life-style factors in relation to a wide range of reproductive and endocrine conditions, resource use (ii) measurement of weight, height, waist/hip circumference and blood pressure, (iii) collection of saliva samples for genotyping. (2) Gynaecology clinic follow up, including a pelvic ultrasound scan (USS). There is also a follow-up food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) targeted to all women taking part in the baseline recruitment with an aim to collect more detailed data on dietary habits.Discussion: The COHERE Initiative will generate prevalence rates for conditions, define the clinical profiles for women's health conditions, and estimate the economic burden of these conditions in Northern Cyprus. The results will also provide insights into the current status of health-care among women living in a currently under-investigated region. The genetic findings will inform future gene mapping studies for investigation of the heritable component of conditions in this population/region. Moreover, the results will be compared with other centres collecting data using EPHect tools globally and will help determine population differences and similarities in disease patterns and clinical profiles. The COHERE Initiative will serve as a resource to conduct hypothesis-driven follow-up studies investigating effect of the 'Mediterranean life-style' as well as genetic factors on common benign women's health conditions that maybe specific to Eastern Mediterranean populations.
AB - Background: There is lack of population level data on prevalence and distribution of common benign women's health conditions such as endometriosis, uterine fibroids, polycystic ovary syndrome from the Eastern Mediterranean region despite their significant consequences on quality of life. In particular, there is complete absence of any health statistics from Northern Cyprus, which is an emerging region in Europe. The Cyprus Women's Health Research (COHERE) Initiative is the first large-scale cross-sectional study in the region, aiming to determine the relative burden of benign women's health conditions and related co-morbidities in women living in Northern Cyprus.Methods: The COHERE Initiative is a cross-sectional study aiming to recruit 8000 women aged 18-55 years and residing for at least the past 5 years in Northern Cyprus. The study is composed of two main steps: (1) Baseline recruitment, including (i) completion of a detailed health questionnaire, which is an expanded version of the World Endometriosis Research Foundation (WERF) Endometriosis Phenome Harmonisation Project (EPHect) standardised questionnaire, including questions on demographics, menstrual history, hormone use, pregnancy, pain (pelvic pain, bladder and bowel pain, migraine), medical history, family history of illnesses, medication use, life-style factors in relation to a wide range of reproductive and endocrine conditions, resource use (ii) measurement of weight, height, waist/hip circumference and blood pressure, (iii) collection of saliva samples for genotyping. (2) Gynaecology clinic follow up, including a pelvic ultrasound scan (USS). There is also a follow-up food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) targeted to all women taking part in the baseline recruitment with an aim to collect more detailed data on dietary habits.Discussion: The COHERE Initiative will generate prevalence rates for conditions, define the clinical profiles for women's health conditions, and estimate the economic burden of these conditions in Northern Cyprus. The results will also provide insights into the current status of health-care among women living in a currently under-investigated region. The genetic findings will inform future gene mapping studies for investigation of the heritable component of conditions in this population/region. Moreover, the results will be compared with other centres collecting data using EPHect tools globally and will help determine population differences and similarities in disease patterns and clinical profiles. The COHERE Initiative will serve as a resource to conduct hypothesis-driven follow-up studies investigating effect of the 'Mediterranean life-style' as well as genetic factors on common benign women's health conditions that maybe specific to Eastern Mediterranean populations.
KW - Benign women's health conditions
KW - Prevalence
KW - Endometriosis
KW - Uterine fibroids
KW - PCOS
KW - Chronic pain conditions
KW - Eastern Mediterranean population
KW - QUESTIONNAIRE
KW - ASSOCIATION
KW - PREVENTION
KW - VALIDATION
KW - DISEASE
U2 - 10.1186/s12905-019-0750-1
DO - 10.1186/s12905-019-0750-1
M3 - Article
C2 - 30943949
SN - 1472-6874
VL - 19
JO - BMC Women's Health
JF - BMC Women's Health
IS - 1
M1 - 50
ER -