JHF & WHAMglobal head to Toronto to study women’s health, attend IWF forum

A dozen executive women from Pittsburgh and beyond are heading north of the border next month for a health study tour organized by the Jewish Healthcare Foundation and its women's health arm, WHAMglobal.

As with previous study tours of Spain and Australia, JHF and WHAMglobal are piggybacking onto an International Women's Forum's World Leadership Conference to explore best practices around maternity, menopause, and aging in the IWF host city – in this case, Toronto. Executive women with a strong interest in health care as well as healthcare professionals are attending the November 12-13 tour. Organizations represented by participants include the Heinz Endowments, the Pittsburgh Business Group on Health, Huntington Bank, the de Beaumont Foundation, The Commonwealth Fund, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. IWF members from Arkansas, Florida and Australia are also joining the health study tour.

The health study tour will be led by WHAMglobal Chair Debra Caplan and JHF's CEO Karen Wolk Feinstein, Women's Health Specialist Kate Dickerson, and Director of Innovation Mara Leff. Feinstein and Caplan will then attend the November 14-15 IWF World Leadership Conference where they lead the IWF Women in Health Care Special Interest Group.

The objective of the Women in Health Care Special Interest Group is to bring together female leaders in the fields of health care and beyond to discuss shared priorities and innovative ways to improve women's health and health care in general. The group hosted a similar experience during the 2018 IWF World Leadership Conference in Miami and the 2019 IWF Cornerstone Conference in Barcelona. In Spain, the focus was on women's singular periods of transition across the life cycle: puberty, maternity, menopause, and seniority. In Toronto, the group will host Dr. Jennifer Pearlman, a frequently published health expert with a strong commitment to supporting women entrepreneurs.

The International Women's Forum is an invitation-only organization of more than 7,000 women in top leadership positions from 33 nations across six continents. Caplan is the current president of IWF's Pittsburgh chapter, of which Feinstein was a founding member.

Learn more about JHF's participation with IWF here.