Explore our Professional Programs  to educate physicians, medical students and the public.

1 – Your Health is in Your Hands

The problem

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among Israeli women and the fifth leading cause of death (Israel Ministry of Health, 2014).  One out of every 8 women in Israel may develop breast cancer (Israel Cancer Association, 2015).  Breast cancer mortality rates are significantly higher in religious women compared with non-religious women in Israel (Isak, 2001, Shmueli & Tamir, 2007).

Current breast health promotion activities targeting the religious population are seriously lacking. According to our research, only 2% of the ultraorthodox community accesses health information through the internet.  More common sources include physicians and the ultraorthodox media, which generally do not address breast health.  Therefore, providing effective, culturally-sensitive education programs, that focus on prevention, are a crucial step towards decreasing  mortality rates in this population. 

Our Program

Your Health is in Your Hands: The Israel Breast Health Awareness Program was designed to increase breast health education and screening and prevention behaviors in low SES, religious communities in Israel. Partially funded by the Jewish Women’s Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago, the program was successfully implemented in 9 communities in 2010. 

Since the program’s inception, mammogram rates have been steadily rising and gaps in subpopulation compliance rates have narrowed. (ICA, 2014). Building on this successful model, we plan to replicate the program to 9 new communities.

2 – The Physicians’ Forum

Our continuing medical education lectures educates physicians on the specialty of women’s health from the broader, gender medicine perspective.

3 – Clinical Training Site 

Our medical clinic is a clinical observation site for students in medicine and nursing. Our medical staff also provides informal consultative telephone support for community physicians. Additionally, we provide students from the Henrietta Szold-Hadassah School of Nursing with clinical experience in comprehensive, prevention-based women’s healthcare.

4 – Take Heart!

The Take Heart! Teacher Mobilization Project is a participatory-based intervention program, which aims to reduce the risk of heart disease and increase early diagnosis of heart attacks for staff members of schools in the country. This program increases the knowledge women have of the cardiovascular system and the impact healthy lifestyle choices have on their health. This project mobilizes teachers as potential agents of change, who will subsequently teach the information they have learned in this program to their students, and families, in years to come.

5 – ACT 

In this program, which consists of 6 sessions, we provide madrichot kallah on medical information, based around gynaecology, hormones, anatomy, medication, and the pelvic floor. We also educate them about emotional issues that affect marital life such as intimacy, as well as psychological issues such as OCD.

6 – Pnimah

The Problem

 According to the Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences, disordered eating is related to behaviors and attitudes regarding “shape, weight, body image and food” (Katz, 2014). According to a study entitled Youth in Israel, 60% to 80% of female adolescents have admitted to dissatisfaction of their body weight and image, although the greater part of these women are of normal or low weight (Harel, 2002).

Our Program

Our program  constitutes of four lectures given to the teachers by a psychiatrist, a physician, a social worker and a school counselor. These lectures expand on why such behaviors come into place, what these teachers can do to help their students, as well as more information on nutrition, proper eating, and exercise as an alternative to eating less.