‘Period People Aotearoa’ is a women’s health research programme led by an all-women group of transdisciplinary academics. We combine community lived experience with expertise in scientific, creative, and collaborative research to better understand the impacts of period products on our bodies, delivering positive social change for women worldwide.

We envision a future where women+ (including are able to make safe and comfortable choices about their period products, confident that they are sustainable for the planet and safe for their body. By engaging with ‘Period People Aotearoa’, our communities progress research, impacting women worldwide.

Our hope is to meaningfully contribute to women’s health research by innovating new ways to effectively co-produce research with communities; producing science communications that are more accessible and inclusive; and, nurturing engaged communities of women who act as our research partners.

Women in New Zealand represent diverse cultures, geographies, physical abilities and socio-economic status, yet all have a shared need for good period health, and the confidence that the period products they are using are safe for their bodies long-term. Whilst one challenge our community faces can be access to period products, another is the confidence that reusable period products are safe, tested and considered. We want to gather the shared needs and questions of New Zealanders, to generate research questions which will add evidence, bringing safety and confidence to the use of sustainable period products.

The context
Each month, more than two billion people worldwide have a period – they’re a natural bodily process, after all (albeit one surrounded by cultural norms, stigma, and taboos…). So, what are the issues with periods? Well, waste, for one. The waste generated by disposable period products is enormous – 113,000 tonnes in India alone each year! Then there’s ‘period poverty’ — where people don’t have the products, sanitation facilities, or information to manage their periods. A recent survey by The Period Place found that even here in Aotearoa New Zealand, more than a third of respondents have used makeshift materials like clothing, towels, and toilet roll because they couldn’t afford period products. Nearly half of respondents said their periods caused them financial stress or anxiety. Enter menstrual cups and period undies! These are growing in popularity, promoted as a safe and more sustainable way to manage our periods.

A first project — more menstrual cups research
Menstrual cups have been around for nearly sixty years, so you would think they had been well-studied, wouldn’t you? Nope. When we searched medical databases, we found just 106 published studies. Compare that to the nearly 3,000 studies found on tampons. Most of the studies are surveys of people’s attitudes to menstrual cups. The rest are reviews, commentaries, or descriptions of menstrual cups being used to collect vaginal fluids or to address period poverty in various countries. A few of the studies are case reports of people experiencing toxic shock syndrome or other complications. So, it turns out that much about sustainable period products, including how to use them safely, still needs to be studied. This is the problem we want to solve.

Our approach
We’ll start by building an inclusive, diverse, and safe community of people who use or are curious about sustainable period products. Then, together, we’ll brainstorm a list of research questions about periods and sustainable period products that our community wants to study. And then we’ll figure out how to get the studies done, with our Period Project community involved as full research partners.