Order Description
For over 20 years, the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study has conducted research trials to examine factors that impact risks and development of conditions that impact women such as heart
disease, breast and colorectal cancer, and osteoporotic fractures in postmenopausal women. Health care providers use results from these trials to develop guidelines for delivering care to patients.
In your role in clinical settings, you must be familiar with these guidelines, and you must be aware that through clinical practice, guidelines frequently evolve and change. Often, what is
considered a best practice today might not be a best practice in the future. For this Assignment, you compare guidelines outlined in the WHI study to current best practices for assessing and
managing conditions.
By Day 7 of Week 11
To Prepare:
Review the Women’s Health Initiative article in this week’s Learning Resources. Select one disorder presented in this study (heart disease, breast and colorectal cancer, or osteoporosis in
postmenopausal women.
Locate and select a research article that addresses current best practices for assessing and managing the disorder you selected. Be sure that the research article you select is from a reputable
source.
Consider the similarities and differences between the best practices presented in the WHI study and the article you selected. Think about the potential impact of differences in best practices on
women’s health.
Consider whether the best practices in the article you selected should be used in clinical practice.
To Complete:
Write a 2- to 3-page paper that addresses the following:
Describe the disorder you selected from the Women’s Health Initiative study.
Explain the current best practices for assessing and managing this disorder as suggested in the research article you selected.
Compare the best practices presented in the WHI study to the current best practices presented in the article. Explain how the differences in best practices might impact women’s health.
Explain whether you think the current best practices in the article you selected should be used in clinical practice. Support your position with evidence-based research.

What was the Women’s Health Initiative?
The Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) was a long-term national health study that focused on strategies for preventing heart disease, breast and colorectal cancer and osteoporosis in postmenopausal
women. These chronic diseases are the major causes of death, disability and frailty in older women of all races and socioeconomic backgrounds.
This multi-million dollar, 15-year project, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), involved 161,808 women aged 50-79, and was one
of the most definitive, far reaching clinical trials of women’s health ever undertaken in the U.S. The WHI Clinical Trial and Observational Study attempted to address many of the inequities in
women’s health research and provide practical information to women and their physicians about hormone therapy, dietary patterns and calcium/vitamin D supplements, and their effects on the
prevention of heart disease, cancer and osteoporosis.
A Community Prevention Study (CPS), a 5-year cooperative venture with CDC, was a study of strategies to enhance adoption of healthful behaviors through a multi-disciplinary approach. The purpose of
the CPS was to develop community-based public health interventions models which would achieve healthful behaviors in women aged 40 and over.