FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 2026
Told to “Just Talk to Your Girlfriends”: PEI Women Demand Better. Now Policy Is Catching Up.
A landmark PEI report on perimenopause and menopause is moving from findings to action, and Island women are leading the way.
“I started having quite severe heart palpitations. I had this test, this test, this test, this test, and then nothing. A few years later, through listening to a podcast, I realized: that’s a perimenopause symptom.” — PEI focus group participant
CHARLOTTETOWN, PEI — She is not alone. Across Prince Edward Island, women are navigating perimenopause and menopause largely on their own, dismissed by healthcare providers, unsupported in their workplaces, and unable to find information they can trust. Unmanaged menopause symptoms cost the Canadian economy $3.5 billion every year. On PEI, until now, no one had stopped to ask why.
That changed in 2025, when ASI commissioned a first-of-its-kind community research project across PEI. Thirty-eight women and gender-diverse Islanders came forward, filling focus groups to capacity with waitlists, to share what they had largely been keeping to themselves.
The resulting report, Uncovering Policy Gaps in Addressing the Needs of People Experiencing Perimenopause and Menopause in PEI, documents gaps in healthcare training, workplace policy, and public systems, and makes clear that this is not a personal health issue. It is a policy failure.
“You have to talk to women first, then work across sectors to make change.” — Patsy Beattie-Huggan, ASI Coordinator
Now ASI is taking the next step. Phase 2, From Policy Blind Spots to Policy Action: Advancing Supports for Perimenopausal and Menopausal Women in PEI, launches in June 2026. Community workshops will bring Islanders together to validate and prioritize the report’s recommendations, culminating in a multistakeholder provincial policy forum where community priorities are brought directly to the people with the power to act on them. Phase 2 is funded by the Government of Prince Edward Island Interministerial Women’s Secretariat.
Lessons learned from this project, and practical tools for connecting lived experience to policy change across many other issues, will be shared at ASI 2026 in a workshop entitled Making Complex Issues Tangible: Connecting the Dots Between Experience and Policy. Register online at asi-iea.ca.
The Phase 1 report is available at asi-iea.ca/en/menopause-in-pei/
About ASI
ASI (incorporated in 2008 as Atlantic Summer Institute on Healthy and Safe Communities) connects people and evidence to drive upstream action across Atlantic Canada. A year-round, bilingual hub advancing policy, community practice, and shared learning. asi-iea.ca
Media contact Patsy Beattie-Huggan | Coordinator, ASI | The Quaich Inc. +1 (902) 393-2726 | patsy@thequaich.pe.ca | asi-iea.ca/en/menopause-in-pei/