Menopause is having a moment. From congressional hearings to celebrity tell-alls, women in midlife are speaking more openly about the changes their bodies experience during perimenopause and menopause.
But not all the information about menopause circulating online is accurate. Dr. Sasha Hamdani, a board-certified psychiatrist and health content creator with more than 1 million Instagram followers, said she sees misinformation about perimenopause and menopause regularly. Examples include false guidance to take antidepressants and inaccurate claims linking hormone replacement therapy to cancer.
Amanda Yarnell, senior director of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Center for Health Communication, is working to shape the national conversation by training social media influencers who discuss women’s health. She believes connecting creators with health experts and evidence-based information can help women get better care and thrive in the workplace.
How Harvard’s Influencer Program Works
Yarnell’s project, “Influencing the Influencers: Menopause at Work,” is one of 18 awardees receiving part of the $60 million Workplace Innovation Now Challenge prize money from Aspen Digital. The initiative, supported by Pivotal, a Melinda French Gates foundation, aims to build better workplace opportunities for women. The program received nearly 900 applications from across the United States; winning solutions address issues including workplace flexibility and caregiving needs.
Yarnell has led Harvard’s influencer program since 2023, and more than 1,400 creators have signed up. The program grew out of the Center for Health Communication’s work to bring health messages into popular entertainment. A well-known example is the designated-driver campaign, which enlisted media companies and Hollywood studios to include warnings about drunk driving in storylines.
Harvard’s program is free for participants and provides information and training to online creators who discuss health, whether or not they have medical backgrounds. Social media users may take creators’ words to heart, Yarnell said.
“We’re not all watching the same TV shows anymore,” Yarnell said. “Instead, now we’re all watching TikTok.”
Can Better Information Change What Creators Share?
Hamdani considers herself an accidental influencer. When she began correcting medical misinformation online several years ago, she did not expect her following to grow to 1 million.
She joined Harvard’s pilot program in 2023 with about 20 other influencers, when the focus was mental health. Hamdani said a two-day retreat at the university changed how she practiced and how she presented data and content online.
Through the program, she learned that health creators have a responsibility to present information accurately, source claims and make sure their content is research-backed, she said. When she discusses new information online, she makes sure her audience can access the articles, studies and other sources she cites.
Hamdani said her patients are better informed, too. Many get medical information online and bring questions to her, giving her a chance to correct misinformation directly. Even when creators get something wrong, she said, it can be helpful if patients bring their concerns to a doctor.
Hamdani welcomes more guidance on discussing perimenopause and menopause, saying the cultural conversation is long overdue. With so much information circulating, she said, it can be hard to know whom to trust. She cautioned against oversimplified, clickbait-style claims promising that one thing will cure a condition.
Yarnell said creators in the program care about their online communities. By providing access to information and training, she hopes the menopause conversation will reach more people and offer relief to women who need it.
Other Workplace-Program Winners
Yarnell’s menopause project is expected to launch in early 2027. The other 17 Aspen Digital awardees include:
- WorkLife Law, which is training women’s health care providers and offering a free helpline to reduce workplace barriers for pregnant women.
- Costal Enterprises Inc., which is working to address rural child care deserts.
- Opportunity Work Inc., which is promoting inclusion in hiring systems that use artificial intelligence.
- American Journalism Project, which supports full-time local news coverage intended to expose inequities affecting women in the workplace.
Madeline Mitchell’s role covering women and the caregiving economy at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
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