Field of medicine: Women's health.

Format: Hardcover book.

Audience: Primary care clinicians, health educators, and clinical investigators.

Purpose: To present information on gender-based differences in health.

Content: This book presents an overview of women's health in its broadest sense. Several introductory chapters cover the history of women's health. The clinical sections of the book are well developed and include chapters on health maintenance, general health issues, sexual and reproductive health, and mental health. A chapter on procedures is also included. The book ends with three chapters on research in women's health.

Highlights: Themes carried throughout the text include the identification of known gender-based differences in health and the viewing of clinical conditions in the context of life phases-adolescence, young adulthood, perimenopausal and menopausal periods, and advanced age. Unique are chapters on special populations, including women with disabilities and women of different ethnic groups. The concisely conveyed demographic and health care statistics are also valuable.

Limitations: Although special emphasis is given to life phases and the treatment of clinical conditions in pregnancy, some chapters on general health issues, such as the management of diabetes mellitus, are less comprehensive than are those in other primary care textbooks.

Related reading: Several strong textbooks on women's health are currently available. One way in which these books differ is in their approach to general medical topics that are unrelated to reproductive health. In Leppert and Howard's Primary Care for Women (Lippincott-Raven, 1997), the chapters on such topics as diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease provide greater depth about clinical management than this book does. Primary Care of Women by Carlson and coworkers (Mosby-Year Book, 1995) provides strong clinical chapters for problems more common in women than in men, such as headache syndromes and thyroid disease. Although Textbook of Women's Health cannot stand alone as a clinical guide to primary care, its scope, depth, and unique organization make it a valuable contribution to the field of women's health.

Reviewer: Marilyn M. Schapira, MD, MPH, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.