Premenstrual changes in mood are usually reduced to and dismissed as women’s ‘raging hormones’. But what if a negative premenstrual experience is not a hormonal disorder but rather a message from the body about the socio-ecological causes of ill-health? Building on an established partnership with a technology company providing a period-tracker app with million of users, I am running a series of experiments to evaluate how the menstrual experience is shaped by social ecology, from the presence of pathogenic microorganisms to negative societal discourse about menstrual cycling.
This project is in collaboration with and Gabriella Kountourides (DPhil candidate, University of Oxford)
Relevant publications
Alexandra Alvergne, Marija Vlajic Wheeler, Vedrana Högqvist Tabor, Do sexually transmitted infections exacerbate negative premenstrual symptoms? Insights from digital health, Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, Volume 2018, Issue 1, 2018, Pages 138–150, https://doi.org/10.1093/emph/eoy018