On the Blob: Millennials vs Gen Zs talk menstrual health

Horizon Co-Investigator Svenja Adolphs, Professor of English Language and Linguistics, Research Fellow, Emma McClaughlin and Research Associates Kate Barber & Xinmei Sun recently teamed up with Thrive to develop the research questions and project methodology for this White Paper: On the Blob: Millennials vs Gen Zs talk menstrual health. 

To support understanding how groups of people speak and how their language choice reflects their thinking, Svenja and Emma took a corpus linguistics approach analysing data from 10 focus group to identify patterns, including frequency and use of specific words. Data on product brands was also gathered and analysed to examine how companies talk about menstrual health. 

Set to target 122+ women’s health and lifestyle brands with a reach of 40,000+ as part of Thrive’s organisation strategy to address unequal health outcomes for women, the white paper covers ‘what women want’ and companies on menstrual health – insights from brand analysis and conclusion with key actions for menstrual health communications. 

This work was supported by the University of Nottingham Arts Impact Accelerator Fund with match funding from Thrive.