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Chronic pelvic and genital pain conditions (CPGPCs) often go undiagnosed and untreated in women for years after symptom onset. This is due, in part, to communication challenges experienced by patients such as difficulties describing pain and the stigmatized nature of CPGPCs. However, studies have yet to explore how early messages about menstruation, a context similar in its stigmatized and painful nature, may contribute to undertreatment and diagnostic delays for adult women experiencing CPGPCs by normalizing pelvic and genital pain when they are young girls. Guided by critical feminist theorizing (CFT) and sensitized by an existing typology of negative messages communicated by mothers to daughters about menstruation, this study analyzes interviews with 17 women with CPGPCs to explore how features of negative messages about menstruation (i.e., information restriction and omission) appear and recur in women's descriptions of their later CPGP experiences. Findings suggest that early life talk about menstruation forms a communicative precedent for young girls which later constrains how they talk about CPGP in adulthood. Findings also problematize early-life communication about menstruation, which normalizes women's pain, and suggest connections to outcomes (e.g., diagnostic delays) for women with CPGPCs. Theoretical and practical implications are offered. Limitations and future directions are described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information generated by the Human Genome Project is intended to result in better understanding of genetic variation and disease, affording opportunities to intervene in human health both prior to and after birth. The lay public's construction of meaning associated with these aims, however, has been given little systematic consideration. As God and religion are often invoked as structures to give meaning to technical and scientific discoveries, this project sought to examine public discussions associated with religious frameworks used to talk about human genetics. The results of 17 focus group discussions revealed a range of lay epistemologies that suggest how religious faith may impact individual perceptions, with some consistent differences in discourse for African Americans as compared to European Americans observed. The ethical and practical applications of this information are extended to suggestions for health promotion, care, and counseling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]