Health policy

This article explores the history of gynecology and how the hysterectomy came to be the most common surgery performed on women in Canada today. Identifies why this approach is problematic for women's health. 

This article describes the making of Canada's Women's Health Network. Shares components, objectives and questions to consider. Lists provincial network contacts. 

A book written by members of Women and Health Care Reform, a national working group housed within the National Network on Environments and Women’s Health, the collection points to the importance of including gender in health sector decision-making. Twelve concise chapters address a wide range of issues, including obesity, maternity care, mental health of health care workers, and private health insurance. 

El análisis de género es una política de la Organización Panamericana de la Salud. En esta línea, la Oficina de Género, Etnicidad y Salud promueve la toma de decisiones con base en información, y el fortalecimiento de las capacidades nacionales para generar, analizar y utilizar eficazmente los indicadores de salud, desde una perspectiva de género y de diversidad.

Presents the basic elements for developing a gender-based analysis using health statistics, and includes some case studies based on data derived from Belize. Highlights the importance of using data disaggregated by sex, age, socioeconomic level, ethnic group, sexual orientation, geographic area, and other factors, in specific contexts, and whenever possible.

Highlights the key findings and outcomes from the Healthy Balance Forum May 2-3, 2006 in Dartmouth, N.S., and outlines how the forum will impact the future activities of the HBRP. Includes summaries of each presentation along with copies of the presentation slides where available.

This framework for action addresses the health status and factors that influence women's health at midlife and older ages with a focus on gender. It provides guidance on how policy-makers, practitioners, nongovernmental organizations and civil society can improve the health and well-being of ageing women by simultaneously applying both a gender and an ageing lens in their policies, programmes and practices, as well as in research.

Promoting gender equality and empowering women (Millennium Development Goal 3) is not only an important goal in itself but also represents a powerful strategy for achieving other MDGs, especially MDG 5, which is to improve maternal health. This leaflet specifies what gender equality and women's empowerment mean, providing specific examples.

When governments invite the public to participate in consultations to reform health care and other policies, they generally represent themselves as calling upon citizens to engage in a social, but apolitical process. This study questions this representation by rethinking how policy is formulated and enacted and by rethinking how Aboriginal women are regarded when they engage in the health care system.

Using discourses on “lone mothers” as a case study, this research paper explores some of the dilemmas of conducting health policy research focused on particular social groups. The paper highlights the importance of health research that takes a reflexive stance towards the role of researchers in creating and augmenting negative and stigmatizing social classifications.