While menstruation remains a taboo topic for some, more than a dozen students and community members attended a presentation Oct. 27 at the Cambridge Public Health Department on menstrual health experiences for students at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School. The turnout and the study itself suggest Cambridge youth are ready to bring the topic out into the open.
It’s high time, according to Sana Khan, a doctoral candidate at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, whose research into menstrual health experiences at the Cambridge public high school revealed persistent taboos on the topic.
Khan worked with two 11th-graders on the project — Naomi Mehari, a junior at Winthrop High School, and Atheeb Mohammed, who attends Boston University Academy — to survey Cambridge Rindge and Latin students on their experiences with menstrual health and education. The research spanned four months beginning in July, and was done in collaboration with the Resilient Sisterhood Project, a Cambridge- and Boston-based reproductive justice nonprofit.
Khan found some adolescents in Cambridge would benefit from more education and support surrounding menstrual health, particularly regarding product use and hormonal changes. While many study participants said they had female figures they could use for support, some of them still encounter menstruation stigmas within and outside of school.
“I’m really glad a lot of youth came,” Khan said after the presentation. “They are the ones informing this work.”
Khan and her co-researchers interviewed 15 CRLS students across all four grades. The researchers found that many girls need more support and education on menstrual health topics. Part of Khan’s methodology involved a mapping activity, a visual exercise where participants were asked to represent their adolescent experiences with periods.
Across focus groups, participants said they valued learning about periods in health class, but most described male health and physical education teachers to whom they did not feel they could relate.
The students at Tuesday’s presentation, many of whom attend CRLS, echoed the sentiment with descriptions of overly vague and awkward health-class conversations. “I had a male health teacher in middle school and it wasn’t great,” one student at the discussion said.
Views on mixed-gender health education differed, according to Khan’s findings. “I just feel more comfortable with people who go through the same stuff,” one participant said, while another thinks “all genders should learn about” menstruation.
Sarah Swettberg, a nurse practitioner who practices at the Cambridge Health Alliance Teen Health Center and attended the presentation, asked the students in the room if they’d benefit from a separate space in school to discuss menstruation. The question garnered nods from around the room.
Another focus of Khan’s research was menstrual product use, an area where many study participants and discussion attendees expressed uncertainty. Khan found that participants had more familiarity with pad use, but less with products like tampons, menstrual cups and period underwear. Many participants expressed challenges about managing pad use throughout the school day.
After Khan presented research findings, she opened up the conversation to the attendees, who gradually grew more comfortable sharing their individual experiences. Several asked questions about correct product use.
Access to period products at school got “mixed reviews,” according to the presentation.
Some attendees expressed complaints about the quality of the products available at school, while others were grateful to the nurses and teachers who provide products. There was also discussion about the quality of the pads available in certain bathrooms at the high school.
A taboo topic
One participant described Tuesday’s conversation as an experience in “girlhood.”
“The taboo-ness of periods is taught,” another attendee said.
Khan said she pursued this research because of her interest in “community-based participatory research methods,” which include people affected by a given issue as co-researchers.
“As researchers, we miss important information when we treat participants as the “subjects” of the research,” Khan wrote to Cambridge Day in an email.
Mehari and Mohammed said they were grateful that they were given the opportunity to contribute to the project as co-researchers. They were trained in focus-group facilitation, workshopped the project’s mapping system and research protocols, and facilitated surveys.
“We were able to relate to [the participants],” Mehari said. She found herself thinking ‘Oh my God, I thought that was just me,’ during the survey process. Seeing “other people have the same struggles was really validating,” she added.
Mohammed said working on the project made her more aware of menstruation stigma. “I feel more comfortable talking about my menstrual health,” she said.
The study also found most participants learned about menstruation through TikTok, and some through artificial intelligence programs. The researchers recommended the use of more creative ways “to encourage conversation and information sharing — whether in school or outside.”
Khan said she would like to submit her findings to peer-reviewed journals. Her ultimate goal is to help adolescents distinguish regular period symptoms from ones that may require medical attention. “I would love to continue this work,” Khan said after the event.
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.