Study Reveals Lack of Menopause Documentation in Health Records
A comprehensive study of data from nearly 396,000 women indicates that menopause is often not recorded in electronic health records (EHRs), even when reported by the women themselves. The University of Colorado Anschutz researchers analyzed information from the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program and discovered a significant disparity between women’s survey reports and what appeared in their medical records.
This lack of documentation could hinder efforts to understand women’s health and disease risks more effectively. Although menopause is a normal life stage, it was found in only about 7% of women’s medical records. As lead author Audrey Hendricks explained to Newsweek, one primary reason for this gap is the absence of routine questioning during medical visits. She noted, “The biggest reason is we don’t ask. In the doctor’s office, menopause is often only recorded because a woman brings it up.”
Unlike consistently documented metrics such as blood pressure or weight, menopause information often resides in physicians’ notes rather than standardized fields, complicating access for researchers. The gap became more evident when researchers compared survey responses with EHR data. Among those who reported experiencing menopause in surveys, only approximately 14% had corresponding EHR documentation.
The study identified about 193,000 reports of menopause in surveys, compared to only around 28,000 diagnoses in medical records, highlighting a significant mismatch. Researchers clarified that medical records were generally accurate when present but often lacked menopause information altogether. Women with a documented menopause diagnosis generally confirmed this in surveys, suggesting consistency in available records.
These findings are concerning, as menopause is crucial in health research. It impacts aspects like cardiometabolic health. Despite its significance, many questions remain unanswered. Scientists continue to explore how menopause timing affects health, how different menopause types influence outcomes, and how experiences differ across populations.
Hendricks highlighted the difficulty in researching menopause’s relationship with disease due to missing information on menopause age. Understanding how menopause influences heart disease risk, for instance, is challenging without this data. While heart disease risk rises post-menopause, researchers are still unclear about hormonal changes’ roles versus aging.
The study also found that essential menopause-related details were frequently missing from records. These included menopause status and age, both critical for health outcome studies. Such gaps pose challenges for research using large datasets like All of Us, which integrate participant surveys, EHRs, and genomic data. Missing high-quality information complicates investigations into menopause’s links with disease risk and long-term health.
Authors argue that incomplete data limits understanding of menopause’s role in women’s health over time. Without critical reproductive health information, many patterns may remain elusive. Identifying this issue can guide future studies using the All of Us database. It may aid in defining study groups, designing projects, and estimating participant numbers needed for specific research questions.
The findings also highlight a broader deficiency in women’s health data collection. Researchers urge for more consistent and comprehensive documentation of menopause and reproductive health information. Hendricks suggests a practical improvement is including standardized questions on forms during routine appointments.
She advocated asking about menstrual cycles and menopause status during annual physicals, OB-GYN visits, and mammograms to ensure consistent information collection. Enhanced documentation could facilitate researching menopause’s health impacts, exploring menopause age and disease risk connections, and examining outcomes across diverse populations. Ultimately, better information accessibility could improve understanding and care for millions of women.
Reference: Staples et al. Menopause. DOI: 10.1097/GME.0000000000002884
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Kara Dolman and Paul Donnelley.