Gender Issues

In 2008 the Capacity Project partnered with the Lesotho Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in a study of the gender dynamics of HIV/AIDS caregiving in three districts of Lesotho to account for men’s absence in HIV/AIDS caregiving and investigate ways in which they might be recruited into the community and home-based care workforce. [from abstract]

This training manual is a resource to build the leadership, advocacy and management skills of grassroots women leaders and others working in HIV. It is a scaled-down adaptation of the training curriculum used to build the leadership skills and technical expertise of women working on the frontlines in the fight against HIV and AIDS, and to strengthen the capacity of their organizations to advocate for stronger HIV and AIDS policies, programs and resources that meet the distinct needs of women.

Although the proportion of women in medicine is growing, female physicians continue to be disadvantaged in professional activities. The purpose of the study was to determine and compare the professional activities of female and male primary care physicians in Andalusia and to assess the effect of the health center on the performance of these activities. [from abstract]

This report oulines the lessons learned from a program designed to to build the capacity of staff in health care centers and hospitals to effectively screen for intra-family violence and refer victims to appropriate services, and to better educate and involve men in sexual and reproductive health through pilot activities in Bolivia, Honduras and Nicaragua. [adapted from author]

This report summarizes the discussion and final recommendations from a meeting on integrating gender considerations into the curricula for health professional. It presents: an overview of experiences with integrating gender considerations into the curricula for health professionals; case examples; a synthesis of lessons learned about enabling conditions and strategies for integrating gender issues into the curricula of health professionals; and recommendations for core minimum gender competencies for health professionals. [adapted from introduction]

This summary of the lengthy “So What?” review is intended to present policymakers and program managers with a clear and accessible picture of what happens when gender concerns are integrated into reproductive health programs. [from introduction]

The manual orientes program managers and technical staff on how to integrate gender concerns into program design, implementation, and evaluation. The manual promotes greater understanding of how gender relations and identities affect individuals’ and groups’ capacity to negotiate and obtain better RH/HIV/AIDS decisions and outcomes. [from preface]

This briefing booklet provides program officers and staff within USAID and partner organizations with field-based insights on how to integrate gender into HIV/AIDS programs, in a practical sense. The ability to address gender issues is central to the success of programs and reducing women and men’s vulnerability to HIV and its impacts. [from introduction]

The The Interagency Gender Working Group (IGWG) toolkit is a resource on gender and health that brings together a wealth of practical and hands-on how-to resources for gender integration and mainstreaming in health policies, programs, and institutions. [adapted from author]

This research examend HIV-related stigma in Nigeria focusing on how power differences based on gender perpetuate the stigmatization of people living with HIV/AIDS and how these gender differences affect the care that they receive in health care institutions. [adapted from abstract]

This report documents some of the processes undertaken to integrate gender and sexuality factors into a maternal health project in Uttar Pradesh, India from 2007-2009. [from foreword]

This document reviews the ISOFI program. The iterative steps of this system focus on building staff and organisational capacity to critically analyse the social construction of gender and explore how gender influences personal values and beliefs and programmatic designs and choices. In turn, through the analysis-reflection-action cycle of the ISOFI Innovation System, staff can help community health providers and other stakeholders to analyse gender issues, reflect on local barriers and opportunities, and make implementation plans to catalyze change. [from author]

This manual is designed to enable community health educators to incorporate activities related to constructive men’s engagement in reproductive health in their daily work. This includes promoting dialogue among men and women to increase couple communication and shared decisionmaking related to family planning and reproductive health. [from introduction]

This paper presents what the Capacity Project learned about various forms of gender discrimination and how they serve as barriers to health workforce participation, against the backdrop of the global gender and HRH literature. It points to the central roles played by pregnancy discrimination in weakening women’s ties to the health workforce, and occupational segregation in limiting men’s role in the development of a robust informal HIV/AIDS caregiving workforce.

As the Capacity Project has worked to strengthen HRH systems to implement quality health programs in developing countries, it has systematically focused on how differences and inequalities affect women’s and men’s opportunities for education, training and occupational choice. In Rwanda, the Project helped the government follow through on its national policy commitments to gender equality by conducting a study of workplace violence and gender discrimination as barriers to workforce participation. [from author]

This brief reviews how the Capacity Project addressed gender discrimination and inequality in HRH through its institutional mechanisms, approaches and tools as well as in country-level implementation. [from author]

Obstetricians, gynaecologists, family physicians, midwives, nurses, and other reproductive health care providers, along with their professional associations, are on the front lines to promote and to protect women’s reproductive health and rights through the clinical services they already provide. Health professionals are also well positioned to address the root causes of many of these problems: inequality, discrimination, and a lack of respect for sexual and reproductive rights. [from introduction]

Public health systems in most developing countries do not have the capacity to provide necessary care and support to people living with HIV & AIDS. Out of necessity, many turn to family, neighbours and friends for care, the majority of whom are female. This policy brief outlines why women and girls carry the burden of HIV & AIDS care, describes the impact on them and makes policy and program recommendations to help reduce this burden. [adapted from abstract]

Pakistan has introduced female health workers to make sure that women are able to receive the health care they need. However, these health workers face the same cultural constraints as other women in their society. Male colleagues and managers must be more supportive to female health workers, whilst formal structures should be provided for training and effective complaints procedures. [from author]

This three-part curriculum is designed to provide a broad range of health care workers with the skills and sensitivity needed to work with male clients and provide men’s reproductive health services. [from author]

Gender differences contribute to patients’ health and illness. However in current healthcare practices attention to gender differences is still underdeveloped. Recognizing these differences and taking them into account can improve the quality of care. In this study we aimed to investigate whether GPs’ gender sensitivity can be stimulated by a training program. [from abstract]

This paper maps the context of how gender shapes provider-client interaction and the impact of these interactions; provides a detailed breakdown of the nature of provider-patient interactions and how gender impacts on these interactions from the perspective of patients and providers; and reviews gender-specific policies and program interventions within the health system for improving the interpersonal dimension of health care and hence quality of care. [adapted from executive summary]

Gender analysis of the health workforce may reveal that health systems themselves can reflect or even exacerbate many of the social inequalities they are meant to address and be immune from.

Taking action to improve gender equity in health and to address women’s rights to health is one of the most direct and potent ways to reduce health inequities and ensure effective use of health resources. This report discusses the gender aspects of health such as how the work that women do as providers of health care within families can be better supported so as to reduce their burdens and promote their own health. Section vii.1.2 (p. 82) discusses women as health care provides, section vii.2.1 (p. 87) focuses on how to improve access to health care from the provider side such as gender awareness in medical education.

Gender issues are important to address during medical education, however research about the implementation of gender in medical curricula reports that there are obstacles. The aim of this study was to explore physician teachers’ attitudes to gender issues. [from abstract]

Programs and services need to be sensitively designed to facilitate women’s access to physical and social needs. This paper narrates the experience of working with health providers from public and private sectors, community, local government representatives and community-based organizations. Through transformative learning, this endeavour focused on initiating a process of sensitization on gender related health issues for women. [from abstract]

In this paper I discuss gender issues manifested within health occupations and across them. In particular, I examine gender dynamics in medicine, nursing, community health workers and home carers. I also explore from a gender perspective issues concerning delegation, migration and violence, which cut across these categories of health workers. These occupational categories and themes reflect priorities identified by the terms of reference for this review paper and also the themes that emerged from the accessed literature. [from summary]

Se presentan una serie de recomendaciones de políticas y líneas de investigación que buscan instalar como “campo” de acción y de investigación la producción sistemática de información sobre recursos humanos en salud desde una perspectiva de género. [rusumen]

The study investigated the relationship between gender and knowledge, attitude and practice of infection control among oral health care workers in the management of patients with HIV/AIDS in Osun State of Nigeria. It was a cross-sectional survey using 85 oral Health care workers enlisted in the public dental health clinics. [from abstract]

The goal of this training is to enable health workers to address the sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs of HIV-positive women and adolescent girls by offering comprehensive SRH services within their own particular service-delivery setting. [from introduction]