Dr. Paula Johnson is a pioneer in looking at health from a woman's perspective.

Why you should listen

Ever think you were having a heart attack? It turns out that many of the well-known early symptoms, such as chest pain and pressure from left arm to jaw, are more typically experienced by men. Women are more likely to experience shortness of breath, unusual perspiration and abdominal discomfort. Dr. Paula Johnson was one of the first to ask big questions about women's experience of cardiac care -- and their access to care that meets their needs.

Johnson and her team at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston focus on mentoring, measuring and bringing together expertise from practicing clinicians and academics to improve women's health. She says: "One of our core responsibilities will be to address critical questions ... such as, 'How do sex and gender impact health and health outcomes?' and 'How can health disparities among different groups of women be eliminated?'"

What others say

“Addressing women’s health globally is critically important. Creating a powerful movement to lift the health of women globally could transform the health of the world.” — Dr. Paula Johnson, BigThink

Paula Johnson’s TED talk

More news and ideas from Paula Johnson

In Brief

One TED speaker becomes a college president, another designs a beautiful new perfume bottle …

October 14, 2016

The TED community has been very busy over the past few weeks. Below, some newsy highlights. Wellesley has a new president. Dr. Paula Johnson, a longtime champion of women’s health and health policy, is Wellesley College’s 14th president. The celebrations surrounding her inauguration focused on the theme of Intersections; in her inauguration address, she reflected […]

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News

TEDWomen update: Wellesley inaugurates Dr. Paula Johnson

October 10, 2016

Congratulations to TEDWomen 2013 speaker Dr. Paula Johnson who, earlier this month, was sworn in as the 14th president of Wellesley College. She is the first African-American president of the institution. Dr. Johnson is a pioneer in looking at health from a woman’s perspective. Before taking the helm at Wellesley, she was the chief of […]

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Impact of Ideas

How a TED Talk helped put women’s health research on the political agenda

May 15, 2015

“Women’s health is an equal rights issue as important as equal pay.” When Paula Johnson uttered this sentence on the TEDWomen 2013 stage, the audience broke into spontaneous applause. “At that moment, it said to me they got it,” she says. Johnson has been working for decades to raise awareness about how diseases behave differently […]

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