Women are our main health care providers, both in the health care systems and in their families. They are also the most frequent users of the health care system. However, most health research is geared to the male as the standard patient. There has been a need for women to become more vocal about health care, and to be better informed. Consumers of health care are now required to be advocates for themselves and their families. Women's Voices in Health Promotion is a path-breaking book. It empowers the reader by providing her with a comprehensive collection of feminist perspectives on women's health promotion. Readers will find in this volume a clear exposition of the state of feminist theory of women's health promotion, a guide to current knowlege, a participatory action research framework and examples of its local implementation for extending our understanding and capabilities.

Reproductive rights are human rights. Reproductive Justice and Women's Voices: Health Communication across the Lifespan offers an in-depth analysis of women’s reproductive health in a transformative, sociopolitical moment that is redefining women’s access to health care; reducing disparities in maternal and child health is a critical public health goal for the United States. Sundstrom contributes to patient-centered public health by analyzing women’s reproductive health across the lifespan. Four critical body episodes: contraceptive use dynamics, pregnancy, childbirth, and the post-partum period explicate women’s understandings of control and embodiment in the context of technology. Women’s meaning making of each body episode is interrogated in three areas: (1) the physiological experience of reproductive health, (2) perceptions of medicine and the biomedical model, and (3) opinions of mediated messages about reproduction, including new media. Through stories and silence, the women interviewed in this book demand accurate information, including the risks and benefits of health care, and access to reproductive services and technologies. The analysis disrupts the nature/technology dualism and reconceptualizes health outside of the normative processes of menstruation, pregnancy, and childbirth. By talking with women, this study privileges women’s decision-making about reproductive health and offers insight for how women’s partners, families, and health care providers can support them in this process.

This handbook equips nurses with the knowledge they need to provide comprehensive, current, evidence–based care to women at all stages of life. Part I focuses on health promotion and illness prevention, including smoking cessation, stress reduction, fitness, nutrition, and prevention of violence and abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, and other lifestyle–related disorders. Part II, organized alphabetically, covers diseases and disorders—both those that affect only women and those that pose unique issues in women. Icons highlight cutting–edge research, alternative and complementary therapies, prevention strategies, concerns of women with disabilities, and needs of special populations. An appendix lists noteworthy women’s health Websites.

This important text explores the deep relationships between poverty, health/mental health conditions, and widespread social problems as they affect the lives of low-income women. A robust source of both empirical findings and first-person descriptions by poor women of their living conditions, it exposes cyclical patterns of structural and environmental stressors contributing to impaired physical and mental health. Psychological conditions (notably depression and PTSD), substance use and abuse, domestic and gun-related violence, relationship instability, and hunger in low-income communities, especially among women of color, are discussed in detail. In terms of solutions, the book’s contributors identify areas for major policy reform and make potent recommendations for community outreach, wide-scale intervention, and sustained advocacy. Among the topics covered:• The intersection of women’s health and poverty.• Poverty, personal experiences of violence, and mental health.• The role of social support for women living in poverty.• The logic of exchange sex among women living in poverty.• Physical safety and neighborhood issues.• Exploring the complex intersections between housing environments and health behaviors among women living in poverty. A stark reminder that health should be considered a basic human right, Poverty in the United States: Women's Voices is a necessary reference for research professionals particularly interested in women’s studies, HIV/AIDS prevention, poverty, and social policy.

In this innovative collection, leading thinkers in clinical medicine, sociology, epidemiology, kinesiology, education, and public policy reveal how health promotion is failing communities by failing women. Despite a longstanding consensus that social inequalities shape global patterns of illness and opportunities for health, mainstream health promotion frameworks continue to ignore gender at relational, household, community, and state levels. Exploring the ways in which gendered norms affect health and social equity for all human beings, Making It Better invites us to rethink conventional approaches to health promotion and to strive for transformative initiatives and policies. Offering practical tools and evidence-based strategies for moving from gender integration to gender transformation, this anthology is required reading for policymakers, health promotion and healthcare practitioners, researchers, community developers, and social service providers.

How women around the world are leading powerful change Women's progress is global progress. Where there is an increase in women's university enrollment rates, women's earnings, and maternal health, and a reduction in violence against women, we see more prosperous communities, better educated, healthier families, and the preservation of equal human rights. Yet globally, women remain the most consistently under-utilized resource. Vital Voices calls for and makes possible transformative leadership around the world. In Vital Voices, CEO Alyse Nelson shares the stories of remarkable, world-changing women, as well as the story of how Vital Voices was founded, crossing lines that typically divide. For 15 years, Vital Voices has brought together women who want to enable others to become change agents in their governments, advocates for social justice, and supporters of democracy. They equip women with management and business development skills to expand their enterprises and create jobs in their communities. Their voices, stories, and hard-earned lessons—shared here for the first time—are deeply authentic and truly vital. Features interviews and first-person accounts of global leaders, such as Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia, and Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Prize-winning Burmese pro-democracy leader, as well as business leaders Draws on the work of the Vital Voices, the organization founded by Hillary Clinton in 1997 as a government initiative that transformed into a leading non-profit, which enables a network of 10,000 emerging women leaders in politics, human rights, and economic development in 127 countries. These women have gone on to mentor and train more than 500,000 Focuses on the key elements of the Vital Voices five-step model of transformational leadership, including how to find a voice, lead with purpose, cross lines that divide, and more Through the firsthand accounts of trail-blazing leaders, Vital Voices introduces unforgettable, inspiring women who are shaping our world.

Where are the fields of prevention and health promotion for women headed? This valuable book illuminates the need for-and the gains that can be achieved by-targeting prevention/health promotion programs toward minority and low-income women in the communities where they live. Reflecting the rise of women’s health issues to a national priority in the last decade, Prevention Issues for Women’s Health in the New Millennium explores the individual and contextual factors-biological, sociocultural, economic, and environmental-that affect the quality and length of women’s lives. It examines current research on disease prevention and the need for health promotion, particularly with minority and hard-to-reach women, and suggests directions for future investigation. Rather than generalizing or pontificating, Prevention Issues for Women’s Health in the New Millennium looks up close at specific studies designed to answer questions such as: What kinds of health promotion programs could make the biggest difference in the lives of Native American women, today and tomorrow? How effective are cancer education/support programs for rural women, and what can be done to improve their efficacy? How does sexual orientation influence women’s patterns of health-related behavior? How can female substance abusers lessen the distress issues that often bring on risky behavior? How can we more effectively reach African-American women, who are twice as likely as Caucasian women to develop diabetes, hypertension, and stroke? Well referenced and complete with user-friendly tables that make the statistics of each study easy to work with, Prevention Issues for Women’s Health in the New Millennium brings you an incisive look at issues that will become prevention priorities in the near future.

An unprecedented and definitive collection of rabble-rousing writings on women’s health, Voices of the Women’s Health Movement explores a range of provocative topics from reproductive rights to sexuality to motherhood. Trail-blazing advocate Barbara Seaman and health activist Laura Eldridge bring the revolutionary ideas of several generations together in this powerful new book celebrating women’s bodies, and women’s voices. The more than two hundred contributors include Jennifer Baumgardner, Susan Brownmiller, Phyllis Chesler, Angela Y. Davis, Barbara Ehrenreich, Germaine Greer, Shulamith Firestone, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Erica Jong, Molly Haskell, Shere Hite, Susie Orbach, Judith Rossner, Alix Kates Shulman, Gloria Steinem, Sojourner Truth, Rebecca Walker, Naomi Wolf, and many others. With Voices of the Women’s Health Movement, for the first time, every woman and girl can experience in one place the powerful history of stirring words and strong female perspectives that have inspired countless women to take control of their health and their lives. Volume One highlights include influential writings on birth control; menstruation; pregnancy and birthing; motherhood; menopause; abortion; and lesbian, bisexual, and transgender health.