Women's Health Clinical Research Center

Our Mission

The Women’s Health Clinical Research Center (WHCRC) is a unique, interdisciplinary, collaborative research group that designs and conducts clinical studies to improve women’s health and well-being across the lifespan. We believe that research should be driven by health questions that are important to women, their health care providers, and their caregivers. Our studies focus on providing rigorous scientific evidence to prevent and treat common conditions that influence women’s ability to live full and satisfying lives, as well as supporting women in making informed decisions about their health.

We study health problems that are important to everyday women: We are not only interested in prolonging women’s lives but also dedicated to improving women’s quality of life. Some of the conditions we study are underdiagnosed and undertreated by health care providers, as well as understudied by scientists. Even though these conditions affect a large proportion of women in the community, they can also be difficult for women to discuss with friends or family, such as urinary incontinence (involuntary loss of urine), post-traumatic stress disorder, menopause symptoms, sexual dysfunction, uterine fibroids, and heavy menstrual periods.

We support women’s health investigators from diverse disciplines:  Although UCSF is home to many investigators interested in women’s health, it is easy for investigators to become isolated in their home school, department, or division. This limits the ability of investigators to connect as a community with common research aims and study population, and to capitalize on the synergies and efficiencies of collaborative, cross-disciplinary research. Our Center is designed to promote collaboration and cross-pollination of ideas among women’s investigators from multiple departments across UCSF, including internal medicine, gynecology, psychology/psychiatry, urology, and neurology, who bring unique perspectives to women’s health research. 

We recognize that women’s health extends beyond reproductive health: Although we appreciate that reproductive health is an important component of women’s health, we are also interested in other health issues that affect women’s functioning and well-being. Although some of our studies focus on pregnancy or childbirth, we are interested in understanding how these experiences are influenced by other chronic diseases or health issues in women, rather than studying them in isolation. Our common ground is a focus on health conditions that are specific to women or that differentially impact affect women compared with men.