Resources

Liberation! Helping Women Quit Smoking: A Brief Tobacco Intervention Guide can now be downloaded for free from the British Columbia Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health. This Practice Guide supports providers in diverse contexts to start a converstaion with women about their smoking and the possibility of quitting. Drawing largely from Motivational Interviewing – an evidence-based communication style to support change – women-centred principles are translated into practice.

To download the report visit BCCEWH’s website.

For more information about women-centred tobacco treatment, visit Coalescing on Women and Substance Abuse.

The Women’s Environmental Network in the UK has launched an updated fact-sheet on sanitary protection and the environment.

“Seeing Red” is a four-page briefing exploring the links between sanitary products and health, waste, advertising, and chemicals.

Read more.

“ powerful and subversive” – Time Out, New York

“Everyone needs to see Pink Ribbons, Inc.” – The Washington Post

“A searing, passionate and deeply human examination of the warping of a cause.” – SALON.com 

This feature-length documentary looks at how the breast cancer movement has moved from activism to consumerism and challenges viewers to rethink their assumptions about the meaning of breast cancer in our society. Director Léa Pool talks to women with breast cancer, scientists, authors, activists, medical professionals and leading players in breast cancer fundraising and marketing.

RENT or BUY from $2.95
PRE-order your DVD today
DVD AVAILABLE Sept 25^th
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Directed by Léa Pool Produced by Ravida Din
Written by Patricia Kearns & Nancy Guerin and Léa Pool
Based on the book Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy by Samantha King View the trailer at www.nfb.ca/pink
Produced by the National Film Board of Canada

You can also read more about the pink ribbon campaigns, and the need to deal with the causes of breast cancer, not just the cure, in CWHN’s new postcard campaign GET THE WORD OUT!

The first two chapters of Rising to the Challenge, published by the Atlantic Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health, are now available to download in Spanish for free as Afrontando el reto: Análisis Basado en Sexo y Género para la Planificación, las Políticas y la Investigación en Salud en Canadá.

This book describes the process of sex- and gender-based analysis and offers a collection of case studies and commentaries that illustrate SGBA in action. The book is aimed at people working on policy, planning and research and to people at various levels of government. It will help readers understand sex- and gender-based analysis and learn how to apply it in their work for and with women and men, girls and boys. 

The latest update to It’s your health on Health Canada is on sodium, a nutrient found in table salt and many other foods. Your body needs some sodium to function, but too much may lead to high blood pressure (a major risk factor for stroke, heart disease and kidney disease). Most Canadians take in more than twice the amount of sodium they need in a day.

Read the updated article on sodium on Health Canada’s website

In this new book, Dr. Ryan Meili draws on his experiences as a family physician in inner-city Saskatoon, Mozambique, and rural Saskatchewan, to argue that health delivery too often focuses on treatment of immediate causes and ignores more fundamental conditions that lead to poor health. Income, education, employment, housing, the wider environment, and social supports: far more than the actions of physicians, nurses, and other health care providers, it is these conditions that make the greatest difference in our health.

Brought to life by patient stories, A Healthy Society explores a number of specific health determinants, and ends in a discussion of democratic reforms that could help reshape the way we organize ourselves to create a truly healthy society.

Read more.

This new resource guide contains 103 annotated resources on gender and health data and statistics

Health data that take gender into account are critical for generating evidence on best practices and for advancing and informing health policies, which will improve the health of women and families.

This guide arose from the “policy dialogue to strengthen evidence to improve women’s health through gender and health statistics,” held in Washington DC in 2010.

One of the items included is Guidelines for Gender-Based Analysis of Health Data for Decision Making, by CWHN’s partner, Prairie Women’s Health Centre of Excellence.

Read more about the guide and download it from the Measure Evaluation website.

The new book Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History, by Florence Williams, has been attracting lots of attention lately.

Williams focuses on the importance of understanding breasts as more than sex objects, showing how they act as "a particularly fine mirror of our industrial lives." 

Of particular interest is the author’s examination of how breasts are very vulnerable to toxins produced in our society and that we need to go "upstream" to protect breast health. She argues for large scale, systemic changes to prevent diseases such as breast cancer – and not just changes to our individual lifestyles.

Listen to a story about it on National Public Radio, Just What's Inside Those Breasts?

Read an interview with the author in Maclean’s, In conversation: Florence Williams - On why we have breasts, what we don’t know about implants, and the future of breastfeeding

Visit the author’s website.

Canada’s first strategy to improve the mental health of all Canadians was publicly released by the Mental Health Commission of Canada (Commission) this week, which is Mental Health Week.

Visit the Commission’s website for more information about the strategy and to download Changing Directions, Changing Lives.

The strategy includes some discussion about disparities and social determinants and has a short section on gender and sexual orientation and pieces on patient's rights.

Stay tuned for responses to this strategy over the coming days and weeks, on how the strategy has responded to appeals for a stronger gender analysis in mental health that the CWHN and the centres of excellence in women’s health have been asking for, for many years.

To learn more about current research into gender and mental health in Canada, visit The Centre for the Study of Gender, Social Inequities and Mental Health at Simon Fraser University.

From Health Canada:

More and more, generic drugs are being used to fill prescriptions. Canadians want to be sure that generic drugs are as safe and effective as brand name drugs.  

The It's Your Health article on The Safety and Effectiveness of Generic Drugs has been updated with new information and is now available from Health Canada.