Illinois health registry seeks more women participants

More Illinois women are needed to stand by for possible participation in health research.

That's the word from officials overseeing the Illinois Women's Health Registry. More than 4,000 women have signed up for clinical research on everything from knee trouble to postpartum depression.

The Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine launched the registry in 2008 and it helped fill 12 studies last year. But the registry's expanding to help connect researchers to subjects.

Registry coordinators say the goal for 2010 is to have a database of 10,000 women.

For information, see www.womenshealth.northwestern.edu.

The registry's meant to encourage researchers to study diseases in both sexes as well as those specific to women. Officials say women have too often been excluded.