Menstrual Equity Summit unites NYC teens in advocacy for menstrual justice

CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy

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New York, NY | August 12, 2025 – On July 31, more than 200 New York City teens, 20 partner organizations, and numerous community advocates came together at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) for the second annual Menstrual Equity Summit: PERIODT POWER!

Hosted by Teens PACT, the Harlem Health Initiative, and GorjusDoc, the event marked a powerful milestone for the menstrual equity movement in the city, putting youth voices front and center. The day-long event combined education, advocacy, art, and community building to challenge stigma, expand access to menstrual products, and celebrate gender equity.

Hosted for the first time at CUNY SPH, the summit embraced a fully youth-centered approach. Teen leaders facilitated workshops, moderated panel discussions, and led interactive sessions on topics such as menstrual health literacy, advocacy strategies, and the intersection of menstrual justice with racial and economic equity.

The event also featured a marketplace of resources, where participants connected directly with local organizations championing reproductive justice, public health, and youth empowerment.

“Too often, people think distributing period products to those in need is enough but it's time we move away from period poverty and towards menstrual equity,” said Dr. Natasha Ramsey, adolescent medicine doctor and founder of GorjusDoc. “Menstrual equity goes beyond that because menstrual equity and reproductive justice are intrinsically linked. It's ensuring that we meet people where they are, not only with products, but with knowledge and policies that empower them.”

“Period poverty affects us all, regardless of whether we menstruate or not,” said peer leader Shalena Brown. “It’s crucial to show up and advocate for those with limited access, because an injustice to one is an injustice to all.”

"Everything about the day was truly inspiring, from the exhilarating keynote to the motivating panel,” said Teens PACT Program Manager Natasha Sutherland. “I even shed a little tear watching the youth-led panel and hosting team, who created a powerful space where young people could see themselves represented in leadership, advocacy, and wellness. The youth are the real MVPs for showing up for a cause that truly matters."

“I’m honored to work with Teens PACT and its great team,” said Harlem Health Initiative Director Deborah Levine. “Helping to create a safe space for young adults to learn and expand their advocacy skills is at the heart of our mission. Congratulations to all who made this year’s summit a success.”

With momentum growing from this year's summit, event organizers and community partners are already planning for expanded programs, citywide advocacy campaigns, and a broader coalition for menstrual justice in 2026.

Stay connected and view highlights on Instagram: @teenspact

Media contact:

Ariana Costakes

Communications Editorial Manager

ariana.costakes@sph.cuny.edu

About CUNY SPH

The CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) is committed to promoting and sustaining healthier populations in New York City and around the world through excellence in education, research, and service in public health and by advocating for sound policy and practice to advance social justice and improve health outcomes for all.

About Teens PACT

Teens PACT is a youth-led program dedicated to empowering young people with the knowledge, skills, and resources to make informed decisions about their health.

About Harlem Health Initiative

The Harlem Health Initiative works to reduce health inequities in Northern Manhattan through grassroots outreach, education, and advocacy.

About GorjusDoc

GorjusDoc is a health equity advocate and media creator using storytelling to bring attention to urgent public health issues affecting marginalized communities.

WHY D.E.I.

US clinicians are more likely to question credibility of Black than White patients in medical notes

Analysis of more than 13 million Electronic Health Records notes reveals potential racial bias in how doctors document patient trustworthiness

PLOS

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Racial bias in clinician assessment of patient credibility: Evidence from electronic health records
 

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Credit: Beach et al., 2025, PLOS One, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Clinicians are more likely to indicate doubt or disbelief in the medical records of Black patients than in those of White patients—a pattern that could contribute to ongoing racial disparities in healthcare. That is the conclusion of a new study, analyzing more than 13 million clinical notes, publishing August 13, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Mary Catherine Beach of Johns Hopkins University, U.S.

There is mounting evidence that electronic health records (EHR) contain language reflecting the unconscious biases of clinicians, and that this language may undermine the quality of care that patients receive.

In the new study, researchers analyzed 13,065,081 EHR notes written between 2016 and 2023 about 1,537,587 patients by 12,027 clinicians at a large health system in the mid-Atlantic United States. They used artificial intelligence (AI) tools to find which notes had language suggesting the clinician doubted the sincerity or narrative competence of the patient—for example stating that the patient “claims,” “insists,” or is “adamant about” their symptoms, or is a “poor historian.” 

Overall, fewer than 1% (n=106,523; 0.82%) of the medical notes contained language undermining patient credibility – about half of which undermined sincerity (n=62,480; 0.48%) and half undermined competence (n=52,243; 0.40%). However, notes written about non-Hispanic Black patients, compared to those written about White patients, had higher odds of containing terms undermining the patients’ credibility (aOR 1.29, 95% CI 1.27–1.32), sincerity (aOR 1.16; 95% CI 1.14–1.19) or competence (aOR 1.50; 95% 1.47–1.54). Moreover, notes written about Black patients were less likely to have language supporting credibility (aOR 0.82; 95% CI 0.79–0.85) than those written about White or Asian patients.

The study was limited by the fact that it used only one health system and did not examine the influence of clinician characteristics such as race, age or gender. Additionally, as the utilized NLP models had high, but not perfect, accuracy in detecting credibility-related language, they may have misclassified some notes and thereby under- or overestimated the prevalence of credibility-related language. 

Still, the authors conclude that clinician documentation undermining patient credibility may disproportionately stigmatize Black individuals, and that the findings likely represent “the tip of an iceberg.” They say that medical training should help future clinicians become more aware of unconscious biases, and that AI tools used to help write medical notes should be programmed to avoid biased language. 

The authors add: “For years, many patients – particularly Black patients – have felt their concerns were dismissed by health professionals. By isolating words and phrases suggesting that a patient may not be believed or taken seriously, we hope to raise awareness of this type of credibility bias with the ultimate goal of eliminating it.”

 

 

In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS One: http://plos.io/4mkLdNN

Citation: Beach MC, Harrigian K, Chee B, Ahmad A, Links AR, Zirikly A, et al. (2025) Racial bias in clinician assessment of patient credibility: Evidence from electronic health records. PLoS One 20(8): e0328134. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0328134

Author countries: U.S.

Funding: This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities R01 MD017048. The funder had no role in the design, analysis or preparation of this report.

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Journal

PLOS One

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0328134 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Racial bias in clinician assessment of patient credibility: Evidence from electronic health records

Article Publication Date

13-Aug-2025

MONOGAMY IS A MYTH

Parents may have been more likely to cheat than non-parents during the COVID-19 pandemic

New study explores infidelity among heterosexual U.S. couples during first year of the pandemic

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In a survey study of more than 1,000 U.S. adults who were in committed, heterosexual relationships during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, parents were more likely than non-parents to report an increased desire for infidelity since before the pandemic, and were also more likely to report having actually cheated on their partner during the pandemic. Dr. Jessica T. Campbell of Indiana University Bloomington, U.S., and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on August 13, 2025.

Prior research has suggested that COVID-19 pandemic conditions strained many romantic and sexual relationships. Other research suggests that high stress and relationship dissatisfaction may prompt some people to consider engaging in romantic or sexual infidelity.

However, few studies have specifically explored how the pandemic may have influenced infidelity-related desires and behaviors. To help fill that gap, Dr. Campbell and colleagues analyzed survey data from 1,070 U.S. adults who were in committed, heterosexual relationships in 2020 and 2021, during the first year of the pandemic. The survey included questions about parenthood and whether the participant had engaged in any actions that their partner would consider to be infidelity.

Statistical analysis of the survey answers showed that, in general, parents reported higher levels of amplified desire for—and engagement in—infidelity during the pandemic compared to non-parents. The analysis also showed that men were more likely than women to report that their desire to engage in infidelity increased during the pandemic, and more likely to report having cheated; these findings align with a large body of prior research on gender differences in infidelity.

However, while the researchers hypothesized that male parents would report the highest levels of cheating and elevated desire for infidelity, the mothers and fathers in this study instead showed similar patterns, suggesting that the pandemic’s impact on infidelity may have been experienced more broadly across genders.

These results suggest that, for parents and men in particular, periods of high external stress may intensify vulnerabilities that lead to cheating. On the basis of their findings, the authors call for targeted efforts to support parents in ways that help them navigate their relationships during such times.

The authors add: “Our recent research found that parents, compared to non-parents, reported higher desire for and engagement in infidelity during periods of significant external stress, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Men also reported greater desire and behavior than women in general.”

“These findings suggest that parents, and men in particular, may be especially susceptible to infidelity-related risk factors during high-stress life events. Targeted support for these individuals and their relationships may be especially important when navigating periods of collective or personal strain.”

In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS One: http://plos.io/44XUBBr

Citation: Campbell JT, Viegas de Moraes Leme LF, Gesselman AN (2025) Infidelity among parents in committed relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic. PLoS One 20(8): e0329015. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0329015

Author countries: U.S.

Funding: The data collection for the present research was supported by Hearst Communications. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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Journal

PLOS One

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0329015 

Method of Research

Survey

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Infidelity among parents in committed relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic

Article Publication Date

13-Aug-2025

CRT FOR REAL

In once-redlined city neighborhoods, ambulances still lag behind

Rutgers University

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In parts of cities once marked “hazardous” on federal housing maps, an ambulance is still more likely to show up late than in neighborhoods that bankers favored nearly a century ago, according to a national analysis of 236 urban areas.

Rutgers researchers found that 7.06 % of residents in historically redlined Grade D tracts (considered “hazardous”) lacked rapid access to emergency medical services compared with 4.36 % in Grade A tracts, a gap that held across every U.S. region.

The study in JAMA Network Open used modern traffic data, 2020 Census block groups and historic Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) maps to trace drive times from 42,472 emergency medical service (EMS) stations. The researchers found that 2.2 million of the 41 million people (5.34%) living inside the mapped zones cannot count on an ambulance arriving within five minutes, the National Fire Protection Association’s benchmark for critical calls.

The odds of EMS response times exceeding 5 minutes were 67% higher in the “redlined” neighborhoods that fell in the lowest of HOLC’s four color-coded rankings nearly a century ago.

Lead author Cherisse Berry, a professor of surgery and vice chair of academic surgery at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark, said the pattern shows how a New Deal lending program still shapes who survives a stroke or car crash.

“Location alone determines whether people get the rapid care that saves lives,” said Berry, who is also a trauma surgeon and director of research and trauma surgeon at University Hospital’s Eric Munoz Trauma Center.

Berry’s team overlaid today’s street grid on the color-coded HOLC grades, green for “best,” blue for “still desirable,” yellow for “declining” and red for “hazardous.” (The grades were mostly used in the 30s, but their usage was not outlawed until 1968.) The researchers then measured the distance from each census block’s population center to the nearest EMS station, adjusting for average driving speeds.

The persistent inequity between differently coded neighborhoods emerged everywhere, but it was starkest in the Great Lakes. Residents of redlined parts of cities there were nearly three times as likely to be beyond the five-minute reach of an ambulance.

The findings echo earlier work by the same group that mapped areas called “ambulance deserts,” but Berry said this study is the first to tie EMS inequities directly to redlining. Because delays before hospital arrival raise trauma mortality by 8% for every extra 10 minutes, members of the team argue that targeting EMS systems development and investing resources in EMS operations with health equity in mind could yield immediate health gains.

The researchers also compared demographic data and found that redlined tracts still hold more Black and Hispanic residents, higher population density and lower median incomes than their Grade A counterparts. These persistent inequities, the researchers said, reflect the historical racist housing policy of redlining–a political determinant of health that produced residential segregation, concentrated poverty, and community disinvestment–and a structural determinant of health that has shaped the distribution of resources and opportunities, leading to inequitable EMS access and enduring adverse health outcomes.

Berry said improving EMS equity will take more than adding stations: “It is time to dismantle the structural determinants of health that perpetuate preventable deaths. Historical redlining and other discriminatory policies have hardwired inequities into our emergency response systems, leaving racially and economically marginalized communities to wait longer for lifesaving care.

“We must redesign prehospital systems to achieve spatial justice–by embedding equity metrics into EMS policy, targeting investments to historically excluded neighborhoods, and holding agencies accountable for equitable access,” she added. “National and state health policy must treat equitable EMS access as a non-negotiable public health standard, ensuring that the zip code where someone is injured never determines whether they live or die.”

She and co-authors urge creating public dashboards, using geographic information system tools to reposition units, and adding equity metrics to certificate-of-need reviews.

Policy shifts could matter quickly in places where residents already face longer 911 wait times and higher rates of chronic illness. By shortening ambulance drives even a minute or two, Berry said, “we can cut mortality significantly.”

The study has limits beyond the usual note that correlation doesn’t prove causation. Most importantly, it models travel distance, not real-world response records that include dispatch delays, traffic or hospital hand-offs. Still, outside experts argue in an accompanying editorial that the work offers a road map for righting persistent wrongs.

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Journal

JAMA Network Open

DOI

10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.25681 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Rapid Access to Emergency Medical Services Within Historically Redlined Areas

 

Binge gaming was associated with depression, anxiety, and poor sleep, with boys more likely to report binge gaming than girls

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Binge gaming was associated with depression, anxiety, and poor sleep, with boys more likely to report binge gaming than girls, in Hong Kong survey of 2,592 children and adolescents.

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Credit: lalesh aldarwish, Pexels, CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)

Binge gaming was associated with depression, anxiety, and poor sleep, with boys more likely to report binge gaming than girls, in Hong Kong survey of 2,592 children and adolescents

Article URL: http://plos.io/4moOETZ

Article title: The roles of binge gaming in social, academic and mental health outcomes and gender differences: A school-based survey in Hong Kong

Author countries: China

Funding: This work was supported by the Health and Medical Research Fund (HMRF) [#16171001] and [#17180791] and General Research Fund (GRF) [#14607319] and [#14609820]. HMRF and GRF had no role in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.

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Journal

PLOS One

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0327365 

Article Title

The roles of binge gaming in social, academic and mental health outcomes and gender differences: A school-based survey in Hong Kong

Article Publication Date

13-Aug-2025

 

North American monarch butterflies use magnetic fields to migrate to and from their overwintering sites - using cold temperatures to tune how they use magnetic fields - per experimental study, which might be disrupted under climate change

PLOS

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Migratory monarch butterflies use magnetic field cues to guide them during migration and refuel during the trip by nectaring on flowers.

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Credit: Patrick A. Guerra, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

North American monarch butterflies use magnetic fields to migrate to and from their overwintering sites - using cold temperatures to tune how they use magnetic fields - per experimental study, which might be disrupted under climate change

Article URL: http://plos.io/4fhCt8X

Article title: Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) only use magnetic cues for migratory directionality with orientation re-calibrated by coldness

Author countries: U.S.

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

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Journal

PLOS One

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0328737 

Article Title

Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) only use magnetic cues for migratory directionality with orientation re-calibrated by coldness

Article Publication Date

13-Aug-2025

 

Hypothetical neural circuit of the environmentally-tuned monarch magnetic compass.

Credit

Guerra et al., 2025, PLOS One, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)