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Women's Health Textbooks: Codifying Science and Calling for Change
- Jeane Ann Grisso, MD, MSc;
- Michelle Battistini, MD; and
- Lesley Ryan, BA
- University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine; Philadelphia, PA 19104 Requests for Reprints: Jeane Ann Grisso, MD, MSc, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Blockley Hall, Room 920, 423 Guardian Drive, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6021. Current Author Addresses: Dr. Grisso: Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Blockley Hall, Room 920, 423 Guardian Drive, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6021.
“Silence is the main enemy of gender equality, and it seems to be breaking” [1].
In response to the rapidly growing base of knowledge about women's health, several general textbooks have been published. These texts address important questions that have been raised in women's health. In this paper, we discuss three of these questions: 1) How do we define “women's health” when only reproductive and gynecologic issues are unique to women? 2) What do women want? Women receive more health services than men-why is there an outcry about health care for women? 3) Why focus on women's health? Men die at a younger age than women, and women's advantage in longevity has remained the same for decades.
How Do We Define Women's Health?
The definition of “women's health” has engendered a powerful and evolving debate. All of the texts discussed in this article (Table 1) struggle with how to define this issue. Some of the earlier texts rely on traditional criteria that were developed in the 1980s; that is, they discuss health problems that manifest or respond differently in women than in men or occur more commonly or exclusively in women. As a result, these texts [2-4] emphasize reproductive issues, including general gynecology, gynecologic surgery, conception, and pregnancy.
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In contrast, Leppert and Howard, in Primary Care for Women, use World Health Organization criteria to define women's health as complete physical, mental, and social well-being [6]. They discuss the far-reaching implications of this definition, including the importance of social and economic resources, multiple disciplines, and the diminished value that the world places on women's lives. The book states that “Women's health is related to far more than health during childbirth and means more than the absence of gynecologic disease. Women's health encompasses the total well-being of each individual woman” [6].
One issue in defining …
This 100-word excerpt has been provided in the absence of an abstract.
