Social roles and physical health: The case of female disadvantage in poor countries

Women's culturally and socially determined roles greatly impair their health and that of their children through a complex web of physiological and behavioural interrelationships and synergies that pervade every aspect of their lives. Women's roles also affect their use of health services since modern health care has been absorbed so successfully into traditional structures that families tend to allocate it, like food, according to characteristics such as sex and age. Change may be occurring through the agency of female education and a redefinition of familial relationships, both of which operate to improve women's position, and hence their health. Health services could perhaps accelerate the process by revising their view of women as the natural guardians of their family's health, and by drawing other family members, and particularly husbands, into their orbit.status of women women's health family health use of health services

Correlates of hysterectomy in Australia

With around one in five women undergoing hysterectomy by the age of 50, the prevalence of hysterectomy in Australia is greater than in Europe but less than in the United States. In this paper, data from a nationally representative sample survey of 2547 Australian women aged 20-59 years are employed to identify correlates of hysterectomy and tubal sterilization over the last 30 years. Physiological, socio-economic and supply-side factors all influence the propensity to undergo hysterectomy, and a comparison with the correlates of tubal sterilization reveals parallels and contrasts between the determinants of the two operations. Age and parity are important predictors of hysterectomy. In addition, use of oral contraceptives for at least five years reduces the risk of hysterectomy, as do tubal sterilization, tertiary education and birthplace in Southern Europe. Conversely, risk increases after experiencing side effects with the IUD or repeated foetal losses, or after bearing a third child before the age of 25.hysterectomy sterilization contraception Australia

Epistemology and Epidemiology: Diagnosing AIDS in rural Malawi

In this paper we seek to gain an understanding of local epistemology--how Malawians themselves understand the epidemiology of HIV (kachirombo, or ?little wild beast?, from the Chichwa chirombo, for wild beast). We approach this by analyzing occasions when several villagers are trying to diagnose the illness or death of someone they know. What information is considered relevant for concluding that an illness or death was due to AIDS? What sources of information are considered authoritative? On what facts do both rural Malawians and the international research community agree, and where do they disagree? And is it likely that these differences might militate against effective reactions to the epidemic