Canadian Women's Health Network (CWHN)

Discusses substance use among girls and women in Canada. Looks at what substances Canadian women use, what are the gendered influences on women's substance use, and what are the challenges.

Discusses the VANDU Women Clinic Action Research for Empowerment Project (VANDU Women Care), a peer-driven, community-based organization that provides support, education and advocacy by and for women who use drugs in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. The goal of the project is to produce new knowledge about the primary health-care experiences of women who use drugs, while supporting their health, well-being and leadership.

Discusses The Government of Canada's Federal Initiative to Address HIV/AIDS, and the lack of women's involvement in HIV/AIDS research and decision making , a significant problem that results in limited access to treatment and supports specifically for women.

Discusses the life of author, journalist and patients' rights advocate, Barbara Seaman.

Report from the Second national research forum on health in minority francophone communities, planned in collaboration with the Alliance des femmes de la francophonie canadienne. The purpose of the forum was to take a first step toward understanding the problems and challenges faced by francophone women in their roles as health-care consumers, workers and volunteers.

Describes the Prairie Women's Health Centre of Excellence report, Entitlements and Health Services for First Nations and Métis Women in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Discusses how access to health services differs among Aboriginal people and how understanding the history behind these differences and what they mean for women is critical to improving health services used by Aboriginal women.

An update on the Charter challenge on direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising (DTCA) in Canada from a public interest coalition of groups granted intervener status.

In June 2007, the Canadian Women's Health Network published the policy paper, "HPV, Vaccines, and Gender: Policy Considerations," to raise questions and concerns about plans to begin mass vaccination programs against infections with some types of the human papilloma virus (HPV) among schoolgirls in Canada. This is a reflection piece written a year later.

Discusses a class of cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins and the risks to women.