Performance Nutrition Series — Developing the Women's Health Assessment Tool (WHAT): An Athlete-Centered Approach to Health Screening

Natalia Galan-Lopez is completing her PhD at Loughborough University, building on a background in sports nutrition and a research focus on female athlete health. Having contributed to international projects supporting the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and the World Athletics Championships, she has centered her work on advancing evidence-based support for elite female athletes.

Her PhD, conducted in collaboration with the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), aims to address critical gaps in research on female athletes' health by exploring athletes' lived experiences and developing practical tools to better support sport science and medicine practitioners. A key outcome of this work is the development of a Women's Health Assessment Tool (WHAT), a novel health screening tool designed to improve the identification of and support clinical decision-making regarding female athletes' health concerns.

In this presentation, Natalia will discuss why health screening is essential for optimizing female athlete health and performance. She will take the audience through the development of the WHAT, highlighting the multi-stage research process, the importance of embedding the female athlete voice throughout the project, and the practical and methodological challenges of translating research into a tool with real-world impact.