The Australian Women’s Midlife Years (AMY) Study

The most comprehensive study of midlife women’s health this decade

The Women’s Health Research Program recognised the compelling and urgent need to conduct a study of a nationally representative study of Australian women aged 40 to 69 years, in order to understand the contemporary menopausal experience, what women are taking in relation to menopause and mood changes, the prevalence of sexual concerns using a questionnaire applicable to all women and whether menopause adversely affects work engagement, independent other factors such as mood, education, work type and financial security. Additionally, the changes in testosterone and other hormones at midlife by age and menopausal status need to be established.

Data collection is now complete.

Funding

This study has no specific grant support, and philanthropic support to complete this major study for Australian women would be most welcome.

The Study

Menopause – the permanent cessation of ovarian function – occurs at an average age of 51 years, and affects every person born with ovaries who lives to midlife. The majority (80%) experience cardinal menopausal symptoms, including hot flushes and night sweats (vasomotor symptoms; VMS), fragmented sleep, anxiety and low mood, and joint pain. These symptoms adversely affect women physically and emotionally, and may be debilitating.

Our 2014 study revealed that 28% of Australian women experience moderate to severely bothersome menopausal symptoms but only 11% were then using menopausal hormone therapy (MHT). The attitude towards the use of MHT has changed, but as most formulations are on private prescription we have no idea what women are taking to manage their symptoms today. Although we reported the prevalence of low sexual desire, we were unable to report other aspects of sexual concerns because of the limitation of the questionnaires available at that time.

While menopausal symptoms have been implicated as adversely affecting women’s work ability, the studies in this field have mostly had major limitation, including being limited to women in paid employment- women have not been asked about the effects of menopause on their volunteer roles or carers for others.

Although testosterone has been recognised as an important female hormone, blood levels in women aged 40 to 69 years have not been documented with precision by age and menopausal status. Hence the associations between testosterone and an array of symptoms such as low mood, sexual function and so forth in women of this age remains unknown.

The AMY Study will report on the following outcomes in over 8,000 participants across Australia who have completed the study.

• The prevalence and severity of menopausal symptoms
• The prevalence of use of prescription therapy for alleviation of menopausal symptoms, including menopausal hormone therapy (MHT)
• The association between menopause symptoms and self-assessed work performance in women in paid and unpaid work roles, including shift work, taking into account other major sociodemographic factors
• Whether menopause symptoms are an independent barrier to work engagement
• Prevalence of low mood, depression and antidepressant use
• Prevalence of low sexual wellbeing
• Reference ranges, by menopause status, for hormone concentrations measured precisely by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LCMS) in women without factors influencing endogenous concentrations.

Other outcomes include documenting:

• contraceptive use
• antidepressant therapy
• use of assisted reproduction, prevalence of pregnancy and breast feeding