Women’s health is an important part of the RCN’s portfolio of professional work, and these pages provide resources and general information to current and ongoing projects, as well as links to external resources to enhance understanding of some of the key issues facing women today.
The Women’s Health forum is committed to equality, diversity and inclusivity. We use the term women because it represents the majority of our work, and we absolutely acknowledge gender identity in the work that we do and understand this term may not be applicable to all our members. The Forum committee are currently working on a new clinical page focusing on Inclusion and Diversity in Women’s Health Care. When completed, a link will be found here later in 2022.
The World Health Organization (WHO) refers to health as being “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”, and goes on to defend the need for a focus on women’s health:
“Being a man or a woman has a significant impact on health, as a result of both biological and gender-related differences. The health of women and girls is of particular concern because, in many societies, they are disadvantaged by discrimination rooted in sociocultural factors. For example, women and girls face increased vulnerability to HIV/AIDS.
Some of the sociocultural factors that prevent women and girls to benefit from quality health services and attaining the best possible level of health include:
- unequal power relationships between men and women
- social norms that decrease education and paid employment opportunities
- an exclusive focus on women’s reproductive roles
- potential or actual experience of physical, sexual and emotional violence.
While poverty is an important barrier to positive health outcomes for both men and women, poverty tends to yield a higher burden on women and girls’ health due to, for example, feeding practices (malnutrition) and use of unsafe cooking fuels (COPD).” (WHO, 2018).