Pregnancy calls for papers / publications

Call for Papers for a Special Theme Issue of Clinical Chemistry: Advancing Women’s Health: The Impact of Biomarkers and Genomics

Clinical Chemistry is pleased to announce a special upcoming theme issue on Women’s Health edited by Drs. Ann M. Gronowski, JoAnn E. Manson, Elaine R. Mardis, Samia Mora, and Catherine Y. Spong titled “Advancing Women’s Health: The Impact of Biomarkers and Genomics.” Clinical Chemistry, published by the American Association for Clinical Chemistry, is the most highly cited forum for peer-reviewed, original research in the fields of clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine.

The purpose of this issue is to highlight recent advances in biochemical and genetic markers used for the diagnosis, therapy, and preventive care of women during all stages of life. This issue will include diverse themes such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, metabolic disease, normal and abnormal pregnancy, infertility, and infectious disease.

Clinical Chemistry invites authors to submit original articles related to women’s health to be considered for publication in this special issue.

Potential topics of interest include:

• Discovery and validation of novel biomarkers for the diagnosis, prognosis, and monitoring therapy of diseases that affect women including: cancer, cardiometabolic and/or cerebrovascular disease, bone disease, and autoimmune disorders

• The genomics of ovarian, uterine, cervical, and breast cancer

• The effect of gender on the risk factors and outcomes related to diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease

• Changes in the microbiome and biomarkers related to pregnancy

• Novel molecular diagnostic tools for pre-implantation genetic analysis

• Non-invasive screening for fetal aneuploidies and other pregnancy outcomes

• Novel biomarkers for the diagnosis of pregnancy-related disorders such as pre-eclampsia, ectopic pregnancy, preterm delivery, and gestational diabetes

• Biomarkers for the diagnosis of infertility, menopause, and premature ovarian failure

• The impact of infectious disease on the global health of women

Be a part of this exciting issue!

Submissions must be received through our online submission system at http://submit.clinchem.org no later than July 1, 2013. Your cover letter should express your interest in submitting your paper for consideration for the Women’s Health theme issue. Journal guidelines for submission apply as described in the Information for Authors on the submission website.

Call for Manuscripts for a Special Issue of Women and Health: Infectious and Other Disease Morbidity and Health Equity Among Incarcerated Adolescent and Adult Women

Submission Deadline: August 30, 2013

You are invited to submit a manuscript for publication consideration in a proposed special issue of Women and Health—a peer reviewed journal published by Taylor and Francis.
Description: Women are the fastest growing prison population—surpassing men in prison population growth in the United States. Women at risk for incarceration frequently come from populations with higher rates of HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, sexually transmitted diseases, and tuberculosis. In addition, female prisoners are likely to have experienced physical or sexual violence, and two-thirds are mothers of minor children. This call invites papers presenting current research on disparities in infectious diseases or other diseases among incarcerated women, gender-related life concerns (e.g., marriage and partnering, pregnancies, parenting and child custody, homelessness, food insecurity, education, and job status/employment) inside and outside of correctional facilities, contextual and other issues related to becoming a prisoner, and programs and services for women in jails, prisons, and on parole. We hope to capture the most current and relevant work on adolescent and adult women that will serve as a resource for criminal justice agencies, institutions and organizations, law schools, legal services, health professionals serving women prisoners, schools of criminology and public health, other educators, social service agencies, researchers and many others dedicated to providing programs and other services in correctional facilities and beyond.

The following is a list of potential content areas (other topics will be considered also):

1. Sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV infection and other infectious disease (TB and viral hepatitis) epidemiology, screening and treatment among women in jails and prisons. What other diseases are prevalent among women in correctional settings and what kinds of treatments are available? Which screenings are provided routinely upon intake?

2. Racial/ethnic disparities in infectious diseases among female detainees.

3. Pregnancy, childbirth, parenting, and custody issues for women under correctional supervision.

4. Female victims of physical and sexual violence in jails and prisons.

5. Mental illness and substance abuse among female prisoners.

6. Social Determinants of health for women in jails and prisons, including poverty and lack of educational and economic opportunities.

7. Is health equity for jailed women possible? What constitutes health equity in these settings? Best practices for health equity in jails and prisons.

8. Reentry into society for women and recommendations for reentry. Are plans for follow-up care for women and girls with health concerns implemented? Are best practices for follow-up care available?

9. Gender vulnerability in correctional facilities.

10. Special concerns for transgendered persons.

11. Variation in national and state regulations for women’s health issues (e.g., shackling during pregnancy, availability of HIV medicines, etc.).

12. Impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on health services in correctional settings. Is enrollment into health care a component of release activities?

For further information, contact Tanya Telfair LeBlanc, PhD, Corresponding Guest Editor via e-mail at: tqs3@cdc.gov or via phone at: (404) 639-2976.

Call for Papers for a Special Issue of Al-Raida on Women's Health in the Arab World

In recent years, women in the Arab world have contended with a tumultuous political and economic times that resulted in revolutions, wars, collapsed economies, and rapidly shifting religious and cultural landscapes. This special issue of Al-Raida on Women's Health in the Arab World calls for papers addressing women's health and experiences of health care in the Arab region. It is especially concerned with women's health in the context of these changing, and increasingly westernized, health systems.

It is the hope of this Special Issue to consider health as a site of contestation where local and global cultural, political, and economic forces compete, and often stand in opposition to women's agency. We are interested in papers that address some of the following questions: how do women reconcile their desires about their fertility with their economic, cultural, and political realities in nations that are experiencing collapsed economies and political conflict? How do women negotiate birthing regimes (traditional versus technocratic) in an increasingly globalized environment? What are the reasons behind the increasing rates of cosmetic surgeries, and how do women negotiate the competing notions of bodily aesthetics and marriage prospects?

In this Special Issue, we hope to provide a forum for researchers to share their knowledge and expertise on women's health in the Arab World from an interdisciplinary perspective. We welcome papers from all disciplines including anthropology, sociology, demography, political science, and economics.

We welcome papers that address the following:

Social construction of illnesses and diseases

Stress and the pharmaceutical industry

Mental Health, depression, and anxiety

Pregnancy, delivery and the medicalization of birth

Demographic shifts and governmental natalist policies

Minority women's health and access to care

Cosmetic surgeries

Female genital cutting/mutilation/circumcision

Health-seeking behavior

Gender inequity and health

Religious interpretations and access to health care

Chronic diseases

Cancer

In addition to academic papers we would also like to include critical pieces, testimonials, personal essays, interviews, short stories, poems, conference reports, and book reviews.

Submitted papers should be prepared in English in MS Word and should adhere to the journal's submission guidelines. Research articles should be between 6000-8000 words, including notes and references. They should be accompanied by an abstract of 200 words and include 5 to 6 keywords. The article must contain a separate title page that should include: the title of the paper; the name(s) and affiliation(s) of the author(s); full contact details of the author(s); and the author's brief biographical statement (up to 40 words). Papers should not have already been published, or be simultaneously submitted for publication elsewhere.

The editorial committee of Al-Raida will inform the author within 6 to 8 weeks of submission whether or not the article will be sent out for refereeing. A decision about acceptability for publication will usually be taken within 12 weeks of submission to the reviewers. Submitted articles will be sent anonymously to two different reviewers. Acceptance of articles for publication will then be subject to modification as suggested by the reviewers.

Articles submitted for publication should be sent directly to the guest editor Marianne Sarkis at the following address: msarkis@clarku.edu and to the managing editor, Ms. Myriam Sfeir, at myriam.sfeir@lau.edu.lb

For full details kindly visit the following website at http://iwsaw.lau.edu.lb

Deadline for complete manuscripts: May 30, 2013

Calls for Papers for a Special Issue of the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics: Transnational Reproductive Travel

Vol 7, No. 2: Special issue on Transnational Reproductive Travel

The deadline for submission for this issue is June 1, 2013.

Guest Editors: Françoise Baylis and Jocelyn Downie

The transnational fertility industry is a multibillion-dollar global industry that continues to grow exponentially, with few guidelines or regulations. Indeed, it has been suggested that “internationalization has made oversight laughable… regulators are dogs with no teeth” (Carney 2011).

At the heart of this industry are women who sell their ova and gestational services. Typically these women – poor women or immigrant women in low or middle income countries or students in middle and high income countries – have few options to earn the money they need to live and pay their bills. The purchasers are single women or men and heterosexual or homosexual couples who travel abroad to reduce costs, to access better quality care, to access medical resources otherwise not available in their home country, to reduce wait times, to avoid legal prohibitions on particular services or to avoid legal or professional prohibitions on access by particular demographic or social groups.

Arguably, this industry flourishes, in part, by capitalizing on differences in legal regimes, differences in wages and standards of living, and differences in cultural and ethical norms. A feminist perspective calls into question the role of exploitation, coercion, vulnerability, and inequity in transnational reproductive travel (at least as it is currently practiced and is being developed).

The aim of this special issue is to make a positive contribution from an explicitly feminist perspective to the ethical debates surrounding transnational reproductive travel. Contributions analyzing aspects of the debate that, to this point, have received insufficient, if any, attention are particularly welcome.

The Guest Editors invite submissions on any topic related to transnational reproductive travel.

Potential topics for this volume include:

Does transnational reproductive travel increase or threaten women’s autonomy? Does reproductive outsourcing to low and middle income countries benefit women by increasing employment opportunities or further subjugate women who are at increased risk of exploitation and coercion?

How does transnational contract pregnancy increase or cloud our understanding of vulnerability? What is the same and what is different, from a feminist perspective, about the vulnerability of those who purchase gestational services and the women who provide these services?

From a feminist perspective, what rules should govern the import and export of reproductive tissues whether for reproductive or research use?

When the motivation for transnational reproductive travel is to avoid domestic legal or professional ethical constraints, should health care providers in the traveler's home state facilitate transnational travel with a view to promoting access to safe and effective interventions, or should they actively discourage such travel?

Should women be compensated for their reproductive labour? If so, what would be a fair wage for providing eggs or 9 months of gestational services?

National self-sufficiency and the harmonization of laws are two strategies that have been suggested to reduce the need for individuals and couples to travel abroad. How might either of these strategies be evaluated from a feminist perspective?

Authors who plan to submit papers are encouraged to contact the Guest Editors prior to submission.

All papers must be submitted in IJFAB style.