Introduction to the 7 Domains of Health | Categories From the Editor

by Caren J. Frost, PhD, MPH↓ & Lisa H. Gren, PhD, MSPH↓

In 2024, women’s health status and women’s access to appropriate healthcare appears to be more precarious than they have been in about 30 years. In 2005, the University of Utah was awarded a National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health Demonstration Project grant for the U.S. Region VIII. This award allowed us to create a number of projects that linked to women’s health with the idea that women’s health should be considered across the lifespan and include more than reproductive health. Consequently, the University of Utah Center of Excellence (COE) in Women’s Health was launched and is still operational in 2024. Leveraging partnerships with faculty, students, and staff across campus and with community partners, the COE (1) developed the 7 Domains of Health, (2) launched an interdisciplinary graduate certificate in women’s health for students interested in focusing on women’s health from a multidisciplinary lens, (3) created the Circle of Health survey to allow women to determine their healthcare needs and to share these needs with their primary care providers, (4) launched a journal (Utah Women’s Health Review, UWHR), and (5) published articles and a book. The 7 Domains of Health were developed by an intensive review of the scholarly literature that discussed women’s health, healthcare, and health needs in a broad context: emotional, environmental, financial, intellectual, physical, social, and spiritual.^1-3 The 7 Domains of Health are the content areas in which articles for UWHR are based.

Purpose of this Issue

The purpose of this issue is to update selected domains of women’s health in the U.S. in the second decade of the 21^st century. Research findings have been changing in all 7 domains. Based on current research and intellectual reflections about political and social decisions, this issue brings together a number of poignant topics that are in the national landscape. This issue is designed for practitioners in a variety of health and allied fields to review information in their discipline and consider how other practitioners view women’s health. We hope this type of multidisciplinary view will support an interprofessional lens for the delivery of accurate and needed healthcare for women.

References

1. Frost C, Murphy P. Reframing the View of Women’s Health in the United States: Ideas from a Multidisciplinary National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health Demonstration Project. Clin Mother Child Health. 2014;11. doi:10.4172/2090-7214.1000156
2. Frost CJ and Digre KB, eds. The 7 Domains of Health: Multidisciplinary Considerations of Women’s Health in the 21st Century. Kendall Hunt Publishers; 2016.
3. O’Farrell KD, Gonzalez-Pons KM, Gren LH, Frost CJ. Examining and promoting women’s health through a descriptive analysis of a novel health tool: the ‘Circle of Health’. Women Health. 2023;63(8):648-657. doi:10.1080/03630242.2023.2250873

Introduction to the 7 Domains of Health by Caren J. Frost, PhD, MPH & Lisa H. Gren, PhD, MSPH