Participants in the Women’s Health, Masculinities and Empowerment: Advocacy and Training two-week course, which is currently being held in Nairobi, Kenya, have two readings to go through today. The first is a 2010 paper, titled “Global Women’s Health in 2010: Facing the Challenges”.
According to the paper, women’s health is closely linked to a nation’s level of development, with the leading causes of death in women in resource-poor nations attributable to preventable causes. Unlike many health problems in rich nations, the cure relies not only on the discovery of new medications or technology, but also on getting basic services to the people who need them most and addressing underlying injustice. In order to do this, the article argues that political will and financial resources must be dedicated to developing and evaluating a scaleable approach to strengthen health systems, support community-based programmes, and promote widespread campaigns to address gender inequality, including promoting girls’ education.
Read the abstract here: http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/jwh.2010.2083