The Women Physicians' Health Study: background, objectives, and methods.

A methodologically compelling reason to collect health-related data on physicians is that it is relatively reliable, easy, and cost effective data to collect. Physicians are capable of answering comparatively complex medical and nonmedical questions in a survey format, and most of these data are unavailable or difficult to obtain from other sources (eg, medical records). In addition, we will be able to recontact this cohort with relative ease, to determine, for example, the effect of time on health behaviors, counseling practices, and health status. This is the first large-scale study of the demographic and psychosocial characteristics as well as the health behaviors, health status, and counseling practices of women physicians. This study should help answer many important questions about women, physicians, and women physicians.