A toolkit has been designed to support healthcare professionals to deliver culturally informed menopause care.

A new toolkit, The Cultural Competency Toolkit for Menopause, has been released to help healthcare professionals in how they deliver menopause care across communities.

Researchers, predominantly from the University of Liverpool, used community-based creative methods to support 60 women of Black origins or Chinese heritage in North West England. They shared their experiences of menopause in ways that reflected their own perspectives, including how cultural beliefs and life experiences can shape how symptoms are understood and described in health settings.

The findings informed the development of the toolkit, which guides healthcare staff on cultural influences on menopause, clears up myths and assumptions, explains taboos and promotes the importance of having trust-based conversations with patients.

Much of the existing evidence on menopause comes from studies of white, middle-class women, with the experiences of other groups remaining less understood in both research and clinical practice.

Conversations with communities 

“We hope it will help healthcare professionals have more open and effective conversations with women from minority ethnic communities, particularly where experiences of menopause may differ from what is commonly assumed in clinical settings,” reflected Susan Pickard of the University of Liverpool, who served as principal investigator.

The team acknowledged that their study is based on a relatively small sample of women from just two minority ethnic groups. However, they aim to further expand with more research and community engagement, and their project sits in the wider context of certain groups of women facing barriers to menopause care. 

Earlier this year, for example, University College London research found that Black women in the UK are entering menopause severely under-informed, under-supported and often dismissed by healthcare professionals.