Resources

Resources
Download the exciting new publication Better Science With Sex and Gender or email us to obtain a hard copy.

The Survey/Le Sondage – The WHRN’s Women’s Health Surveillance project launched the second phase of the women’s health surveillance website on Wednesday, February 13, 2008. The Survey is a searchable database of grey literature, that will link women’s health practitioners, policy makers, health authorities, and women’s groups to a range of resources on women’s health, including international, national, and provincial documents.

The Source/La Source is a bilingual web-based tool to assist researchers, policy makers, health planners, and students identify sources of health data for women and girls in British Columbia and elsewhere. Improving access to the evidence base for women’s health will better inform women’s health policy development and improve the care provided to women and girls not only in British Columbia, but across the country.

Public Lecture Series – streaming audio – The women’s health course Exploring Social Locations, available through the support of the WHRN and Institute for Critical Studies in Gender and Health at SFU, features a public lecture series. Audio files and slides from past presentations can be streamed live from this website or downloaded here. Many thanks to the presenters for their permission to record and share these lectures.

Download the new WHRN brochure (PDF)

View the agenda, list of speakers, and selected presentations from the WHRN’s Summer Institute 2007 Enriching the Conversation

Read the Fall 2006 WHRN Newsletter (PDF)

Download Dr. Miriam Stewart’s presentation from the WHRN’s official launch (PDF)

Download the presentation given at the WHRN workshop on women’s health determinants (PDF).

Take a look at the PowerPoint slides from the launch of the Gendered Data Directory held on May 5th (PDF).

View the programme of events for the WHRN’s Summer Institute – Taking the Pulse of Women’s Health Research in British Columbia and a press release and background document from the ad hoc Working Group on Women, Mental Health, Mental Illness and Addictions (PDF).

Click here for PowerPoint slides from the 2006 Summer Institute.

WHRN e-news April 2008

WHRN e-news March 2008

WHRN e-news Februrary 2008

WHRN e-news January 2008

WHRN e-news December 2007

WHRN e-news November 2007

WHRN e-news October 2007

WHRN e-news September 2007

If you have any questions about the events and documents listed on this page, contact Susan Dixon at 604.707.6378 or email sdixon@whrn.ca.

Articles
WHRN Articles
Learn more about the WHRN workshop entitled ‘Untangling Sex and Gender in Health Research’ (PDF) and how you can participate in the project as it develops (PDF).

Read a summary of the WHRN workshop on Research Methodologies in Women’s Health Research (PDF) and get involved with this initiative.

Download a summary of the WHRN Workshop on Women’s Health Determinants (PDF).

Other Articles
In the North: From Corner to Corner: The Needs, Trends, and Working Conditions of Sex Workers in Prince George, British Columbia (PDF)is a new document made available through the Prince George New Hope Society. It is important to note that sex work has inherent choice, meaning that sex workers control and negotiate the environment and terms. In Canada, sex work is legal; however, sections of the
criminal code make it impossible for sex workers to work without legal repercussions. Raven Bowen from the BC Coalition of Experiential Communities states, “When sex work is criminalized, the ability to verbally and publicly negotiate terms is taken away (section 213)3 or the ability to negotiate the environment (section 210)4. This leads to ambiguity, and shifts control from the seller to the buyer, who is the one with the money!” This can perpetuate the cycle of violence by creating or maintaining “power-over”. Criminalization, according to Bowen, “also
increases instances of situational violence where customers have expectations that are not met, because they haven’t been negotiated-only implied”. More >>

SHE Framework – Safety & Health Enhancement for Women Experiencing Abuse (PDF) by Jill Cory and Lynda Dechief – A tool kit for health care providers and planners to conduct an audit of their practice and/or organization. The SHE Framework raises questions about the safety of the health care system for women impacted by abuse and points to the need to enhance health care for women and includes two contrasting models: Compounding Harms and Safety and Health Enhancement. It also includes a SHE evidence paper which draws from reseach, women’s stories and reports from international bodies; and a SHE Toolkit which helps health care providers, planners and policy makers with concrete tools to transfer the evidence into a safety and health enhancement plan. The SHE Framework is also available online.

Women-Centred Care: A Curriculum for Health Care Providers (PDF) by Jill Cory with Robin Barnett, Shelley Rivkin, Gayla Reid, and Laurie Hasiuk. The goal of Women-Centred Care is to ensure that all girls and women receive evidence based care that respects their social, economic, physical, cultural and spiritual realties. This curriculum is based on the Framework for Women-Centred Health and is designed to support health care providers in developing and sharing knowledge and practice related to Women-Centred Care. The curriculum will help health providers build upon current Women-Centred Care practices, to create new ways of thinking and new practices and structures within health care. For more information, visit the Woman Abuse Response Program, BC Women’s Hospital and Health Centre website.

Read commentary from the ad hoc working group on women, mental health, substance use and addictions (PDF) regarding the Kirby Report.

Read an article from the journal Rural and Remote Health entitled:

Rural women caregivers in Canada

Estrogen therapy for hot flushes challenged: progestin as effective as risk-laden estrogen (PDF)

Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research – press release (PDF)

New Texts:
Women’s Health in Canada: Critical Perspectives on Theory and Policy – Olena Hankivsky, Marina Morrow, and Colleen Varcoe, Editors

In recent years, healthcare professionals have recognized the distinctly different healthcare needs and concerns of men and women. Women’s health, in particular, has come into its own in the last two decades. In Canada, however, there has been little available in the way of a general text on women’s health. This volume works toward filling that gap by providing a resource for teaching and understanding women’s health in this country. To lay out the methodological and theoretical foundations for their study, editors Olena Hankivsky, Marina Morrow, and Colleen Varcoe bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners from economics, anthropology, sociology, nursing, political studies, women’s studies, and psychology.

Highs & Lows: Canadian Perspectives on Women and Substance Use – Nancy Poole and Lorraine Greaves, Editors

Developed through a partnership between the British Columbia Centre of
Excellence for Women’s Health and the Centre for Addiction and Mental
Health in Toronto. Women’s and girls’ substance use is now recognized as an important health, economic and social issue in Canada. However, most books about alcohol and other drug use do not address the unique needs and circumstances of this population. Highs & Lows draws on the latest theory and research to offer strategies for improving practice and developing policy to support women with substance use problems. This unique book includes contributions from nearly 100 experts on women’s substance use, including psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, clinical therapists, health promoters, academics, alternative health care providers, women’s health advocates – and women who have been affected by substance use.

Integrating the voices of low-income women into policy discussions on the Canada Social Transfer CST: First Nations women in Vancouver, immigrant and refugee women in Calgary and women with disabilities in Winnipeg.

Quantitative data about women and poverty already exist. This research provides meaning and texture to that experience of poverty, highlighting issues that quantitative research and policy analysis too often overlook. It also proposes recommendations that are in keeping with many other studies about poverty but that are rooted in the lived experience of some of the most marginalized people in Canada. This study gives an opportunity to women who have never been consulted about their own lives to provide policy input based on their experience of how federal and provincial policies interact for women at the bottom of the socioeconomic heap.

The objective of this study was to document the experiences and perspectives of marginalized women who are or have been on social assistance at some time since 1996 regarding the federal and provincial social program policies that affect them, focusing primarily on social assistance and its funding mechanisms, but also including Employment Insurance (EI), child care and tax benefits. These were placed in the context of the existing quantitative literature about women living in poverty, and the changes in social security in the mid-1990s resulting in the establishment of the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST)

Women’s experience of social program for people with low incomes

This fact sheet weaves together the voices of women with critical analysis and detailed evidence on how the devolution of social programs has impacted on diverse low-income women’s lives. It provides important evidence as to why and how listening to women’s voices is critical to knowing the real issues in policy making and programming. It is based on a 2007 study entitled Integrating the voices of low-income women into policy discussions on the Canada Social Transfer CST: First Nations women in Vancouver, immigrant and refugee women in Calgary and women with disabilities in Winnipeg. It combines existing quantitative research with new qualitative research based on the perspectives of policy makers, social service providers, low-income First Nations, immigrant, refugee women and women with disabilities from three Canadian cities.

Archives
Click here to view archived materials of the WHRN

Links
Women’s Health Research – British Columbia
British Columbia Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health

Child and Family Research Institute

Women North Network/Northern FIRE

The Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research

NEXUS

IMPART

Institute for Critical Studies in Gender and Health

Women’s Health Research Institute

Women’s Health Research – Canada
Gender and Sex-Based Analysis in Health Research: A Guide for CIHR Peer Review Committees

Version française: Analyse des différences de genre et des différences de sexe dans les recherches en santé – Guide pour les comités d’examen par les pairs des IRSC

Canadian Women’s Health Network

Institute of Gender and Health

Bureau of Women’s Health and Gender Analysis

Aboriginal Women’s Health and Healing Research Group

The Centre for Research in Women’s Health

Institute for Women’s Policy Research

National Coordinating Group on Health Care Reform and Women

Atlantic Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health

Le Centre d’excellence pour la santé des femmes

National Network on Environments and Women’s Health

Prairie Women’s Health Centre of Excellence

Rural and Remote Women’s Health

Women and Health Protection

DAWN Ontario

Women’s Health Links
BC Women’s Hospital

BC Health Guide – Women’s Health

BC Ministry of Health – Women’s Health

The British Columbia Reproductive Mental Health Program

Women’s Health Matters

Canadian Health Network

Prince George New Hope Society

Canadian Foundation For Women’s Health

Women’s health resources

Documentary: A Safer Sex Trade

Gender and Health Links
Wikigender – This new ‘wiki’ provides a unique opportunity to reach out to new communities, to engage in a bottom-up user dialogue and to test the idea of a wiki platform, in line with the 2007 Istanbul Declaration and the OECD’s proposed Global Project, Measuring the Progress of Societies.

Wikigender is expected to have two important effects. First, it will improve the availability of information on gender issues globally. Second, it will encourage local allies such as labour unions, business associations and teachers to help build pressure for reform and contribute to dispelling resistance to change.

Gender in child and adolescent health – A new tool to help policy-makers and professionals incorporate gender analysis into their programmes and policies, which forms part of the European strategy for child and adolescent health and development.

SOPHA – Gender and Public Health – The SOPHA Program recognizes gender as a determinant of health and adheres to the belief that recognizing equal rights for women and men is critical to improving global health.

Gender and Health Collaborative Curriculum Project

Institute of Gender and Health (CIHR)

The Department of Gender, Women and Health (WHO)

UBC Culture, Gender & Health Research Unit

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