Menopause literacy is the ability to find, understand, evaluate and use reliable information about perimenopause and menopause so you can make informed decisions about your health.
And I think it’s one of the most important — and least discussed — issues in women’s health.
Awareness tells you menopause exists.
Literacy helps you navigate it.
Those aren’t the same thing.
Not quite.
For generations, women had far too little information.
Now we have Instagram.
We have podcasts, influencers, books, TikTok doctors, Facebook groups, hormone evangelists, supplement evangelists, anti-supplement evangelists and approximately 47 people explaining what you should eat before 8am.
We’ve moved from an information drought to an information flood.
And more information doesn’t automatically produce better understanding.
Sometimes it simply produces more anxiety.
A 2024 e-Delphi study asked a multidisciplinary panel of experts to identify the core components of a menopause health-literacy intervention.
Their recommendations went well beyond memorising symptoms.
Important skills included being able to:
That’s a much more useful version of empowerment.
You don’t need to know everything.
You need enough understanding to make good decisions about you.
Our own Eir Women’s Health & Happiness data gives this question an interesting dimension.
Among women aged 41–60:
51.5% rated difficulty accessing health advice they trust at six or above out of ten.
47.2% rated sometimes feeling dismissed by a doctor at six or above.
Yet only 31.2% rated difficulty accessing healthcare itself at six or above.
That’s interesting.
The issue isn’t necessarily getting through the clinic door.
It’s whether women feel informed, heard and confident enough to navigate what happens once they’re inside.
You don’t need a medical degree.
You do deserve some fundamentals.
Perimenopause is the transition leading up to menopause and can be associated with changes in menstrual cycles, hot flushes, night sweats, sleep, mood and other symptoms.
Menopause itself is diagnosed retrospectively after 12 months without menstruation where there is no other medical explanation.
But perhaps the most important thing to understand is this:
Your experience may look very different from your friend’s.
And having a symptom that can occur in perimenopause doesn’t automatically mean menopause caused it.
No.
This is where awareness without literacy can become a problem.
Search for “perimenopause symptoms” and it can sometimes appear that virtually anything happening to a woman between 40 and 55 is evidence of hormonal decline.
Tired? Menopause.
Anxious? Menopause.
Can’t sleep? Menopause.
Forgot where you put your phone while holding your phone? Almost certainly menopause.
Except fatigue, mood changes, sleep problems, cognitive symptoms and weight changes can have multiple explanations.
The point of menopause literacy isn’t to teach women to self-diagnose.
It’s to help us keep thinking after menopause becomes one possible explanation.
New, severe, persistent or worrying symptoms deserve appropriate assessment.
Ask a few questions.
Where has this information come from?
Does it cite credible evidence?
Does it distinguish established evidence from emerging research?
Does it acknowledge uncertainty?
Does it discuss both benefits and risks?
Does it promise that one treatment, diet, supplement or protocol works for everybody?
That final one should make your eyebrow rise.
Bodies remain irritatingly resistant to universal marketing claims.
Treatment depends on your symptoms, health history, preferences and individual risk.
Options can include menopausal hormone therapy for appropriate women, non-hormonal medicines, vaginal therapies, psychological interventions and lifestyle strategies.
Being menopause literate doesn’t mean belonging to one “camp”.
It means being able to ask:
What are my options?
What evidence supports them?
What are the likely benefits?
What are the risks?
What alternatives exist?
What happens if I do nothing?
And most importantly:
What makes sense for me?
I don’t want women to become their own endocrinologists.
I want them to have enough knowledge to walk into conversations about their health with confidence.
Good information should increase your agency.
It shouldn’t leave you frightened, deficient or carrying another enormous list of things you’re apparently failing to do properly.
We’ve spent decades fighting for more menopause awareness.
The next frontier is menopause literacy.
Because knowledge isn’t powerful simply because you possess it.
It’s powerful when you know what to do with it.
By Lisa Walker, Co-founder of Eir Women. Lisa’s work combines Eir Women’s research into women’s health and happiness with postgraduate study in wellbeing science at the University of Melbourne.
