Women and adolescents in Puerto Rico face significant challenges to their mental and physical health, including limited access to gynecologic/reproductive healthcare, pervasive stigmas, and the ongoing impacts of natural disasters. The WHD addresses these challenges through research, education, and community outreach programs.

The Women’s Health Division (WHD) at Ponce Research Institute (PRI) researches conditions affecting women, including endometriosis, pelvic pain, gynecologic cancers, plus menstrual, gastrointestinal, and mental health disorders. WHD’s work spans molecular/genetic, translational, behavioral, biobanking, clinical trials, and community-based participatory research with a focus on reducing women’s health disparities. Our team brings decades of experience in groundbreaking research on women’s health, community-based participatory research and graduate-level education in biomedical sciences enabling innovative solutions and impactful results. Collectively, we have secured $180M (past 6 yrs) in funding, published in peer-reviewed journals, and obtained patents, advancing the understanding and management of conditions predominantly affecting women. WHD serves the Hispanic communities of southern/central Puerto Rico (~485,000 population) with significant health and social vulnerabilities. Structural challenges, high poverty rates (43.5% vs 10.5% in the US), physician exodus, and natural disasters (hurricanes and earthquakes) exacerbate health inequalities, leaving the region with limited gynecologic/reproductive care. WHD’s community outreach and research programs include: a mobile clinic that improves access to preventive screenings (mammograms, Pap smears) and provides patient navigation in rural, underserved communities; clinical research unit that enhances women’s care through access to clinical trials; a community training institute that has empowered hundreds of community leaders (88% women) through health research education; psycho-oncology programs that provide mental health support to women with breast and ovarian cancer during treatment and survivorship; and an endometriosis research program that has identified new diagnostic and therapeutic targets through pre-clinical and clinical trials, and uncovered the high prevalence of menstrual disorders and distress in teens across Puerto Rico.

Ponce Research Institute’s Women’s Health Division (WHD) conducts women’s health-focused research impacting underserved and under-researched populations in South/Central Puerto Rico including molecular/translational, behavioral, and community-based participatory research. Informed by its research, multidisciplinary teams work towards reducing health inequalities and improving overall health conditions in the communities we serve. WHD’s community outreach efforts have significantly impacted women’s health by providing free screenings and patient navigation services, direct healthcare interventions, and natural disaster relief through its mobile clinic, serving a population 70% female, 30% of reproductive age, 50% of lower than high school education. WHD’s clinical research programs have served 100s of women in pharma-sponsored studies. Through various NIH-funded programs (U54CA163071, U54MD007579) our researchers have equipped community leaders—88% female—with the skills to engage actively in health research and promotion. Funded research programs have uncovered critical health barriers1-5, including those exacerbated by natural disasters and pandemics6-9, identified modulators of mental health10-14, implemented health education programs to address low literacy15,16, and developed psychosocial interventions for women with endometriosis18,19 and with breast and ovarian cancer4. WHD researchers have documented high rates of high-risk Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) genotypes20 and of menstrual conditions and emotional distress in a cohort of 1000+ adolescents across Puerto Rico, including severe dysmenorrhea and cycle irregularities, along with significant disparities in menstrual health education based on socioeconomic factors21. WHD’s multidisciplinary team’s community engagement approach actively develops tailored, evidence-based solutions to improve health outcomes, reduce health inequalities, and increase quality of life for women in underserved communities, while shaping future research to address persistent regional health disparities.