New UW–Madison Study Seeks to Answer Questions, Provide Relief for Menopausal Women with MS

February 26, 2026   |   By Karen Rivedal, Office of Research & Scholarship

UW–Madison researchers Malachy Bishop and Sang Qin will use a $200,000 grant from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society to lead a two-year project addressing the lack of information about the effects of menopause on women living with multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic and progressive degenerative disease of the central nervous system.

By project’s end, the research team will develop and distribute resource toolkits to help women better adapt to living with MS while experiencing menopause-related complications and challenges. The toolkits will answer a growing call from health practitioners, policymakers and especially women — who make up two of every three people living with MS — for practical, evidence-based and user-friendly resources, said Bishop, a professor in the School of Education’s Department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education and the project’s principal investigator.

Bishop’s expertise includes psychosocial aspects of chronic neurological conditions and the application of quality-of-life research to adaptation to chronic illness and disability. His research is based at the school’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER). The new work is one of several projects of the Innovative Partnership for Advancing Rehabilitation Research and Training, or IPARRT, a WCER-based research team focused on fostering breakthroughs in rehabilitation counseling research and practice.

"We kept hearing that women had questions and not enough attention was being paid to it, so we were on the lookout for funding like this,” he said. “This project will be a success when women living with MS and menopause feel like they have somewhere to go to get the answers they’re looking for. There is so much frustration and anxiety around this.”

Funded as part of the society’s Advancing Women’s Health Research in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Initiative, the project boasts a seven-member research team including four medical doctors and national experts in MS, neurology, women’s health, and community-based research from three universities: UW–Madison, Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.

Approximately 1 million Americans are living with MS now, but little is known about how women living with the disease navigate the experience of menopause, which can increase the salience of disability, disrupt one’s sense of equilibrium, and reshape women’s relationship with MS over time, Qin said. In the time leading up to menopause, women experience hormonal, physical and psychosocial changes, perhaps shifting MS symptoms and straining existing coping strategies and support systems, she noted. But little is known about exactly what supports may be needed to foster better quality of life and adaptive outcomes for women.

Researchers plan a three-point, mixed-methods approach to finding answers. They will:

• Conduct comprehensive research literature reviews to map existing evidence and identify evidence-based health management strategies
• Conduct a national longitudinal survey followed by in-depth individual interviews with women living with MS to better understand their experiences and needs
• Develop individually tailored resource toolkits for women with MS in the menopausal transition, including the roughly 10 years before menopause starts and for several years after it ends.

Bishop’s research team includes three more experts from UW–Madison, two from Northwestern and one from Virginia Commonwealth. His campus-based colleagues will be co-PI and assistant Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education professor Qin; Natasha Frost, a neurologist who serves as the medical director of the university’s Multiple Sclerosis Clinic; and Laura Bozzuto, a physician and assistant professor in the School of Medicine and Public Health’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Off-campus team members are Myla Goldman, a medical doctor and professor at Virginia Commonwealth and, from Northwestern, physiatrist and associate professor Sarah Hwang and research associate professor Alex Wong. The team also will employ two graduate students as research assistants throughout the project.

“We were very ambitious with this project plan, so it’s going to be a lot of work to get done in two years,” said Bishop. “What I’m excited about is the national expertise that we have on the research team. It should encourage the patients who are going through this that the best people are on it.”

The project, which officially begins in April, also will assemble a community advisory board made up of menopausal women living with MS and their family members.

“Their participation will be very important,” Bishop said. “They’ll be helping us develop the toolkits in a format that’s most helpful to them.”

About IPARRT

The Innovative Partnership for Advancing Rehabilitation Research and Training is a pioneering initiative dedicated to fostering breakthroughs in rehabilitation counseling research and practice. Its mission is to catalyze collaboration among researchers, practitioners, educators, and policymakers to address the multifaceted challenges faced by individuals with disabilities and promote their full participation and inclusion in society. For more, visit iparrt.org.

About the Wisconsin Center for Education Research

The Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) at UW–Madison’s #1-ranked School of Education is one of the oldest and most productive education research centers in the world. It has assisted scholars and practitioners in developing, submitting, conducting and sharing grant-funded education research for over 60 years. WCER’s mission is to improve educational outcomes for diverse student populations, positively impact education practice, and foster collaboration among academic disciplines and practitioners. Learn more at wcer.wisc.edu.