Bulletin Index/

Health Status

1. When It Comes to Health, Do Sex and Gender Matter?

2. Gender,Work and Health: An Analysis of the 1994 National Population Health Survey

3. Women’s Health in Atlantic Canada: A Statistical Portrait

Health Services

4. Health Care Utilization and Gender: A Pilot Study Using the BC Linked Health Data

5. National Gender Economic Costing Group

Health Care Reform

6. Moving in the Right Direction? Regionalizing Maternal Health Services in British Columbia

7. Invisible Women: Gender and Health Planning in Manitoba and Saskatchewan and Models for Progress

8. Coping as a Rural Caregiver: The Impact of Health Care Reforms on Rural Women Informal Caregivers

9. Missing Voices in Long-term Care Policy Making: Elderly Women and Women with Disabilities Receiving Home Care

Diverse Communities of Women

10. Experiences of Immigrant and Refugee Women in Quebec with the Health Care System

11. "Hearing Voices": Mental Health Care for Women

12. Developing Understanding from Young Women’s Experiences in Obtaining Sexual Health Services and Education in a Nova Scotia Community

13. "Voices and Faces": A Qualitative Study of Rural Women and a Breast Cancer Self-help Group via an Audio-teleconferencing Network

14. Centres of Excellence for Women's Health - Contact Information

Invisible Women: Gender and Health Planning in Manitoba and Saskatchewan and Models for Progress

Tammy Horne, WellQuest Consulting, Lissa Donner, Consultant and Wilfreda E. Thurston, Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary

The purposes of this project were (1) to examine the degree to which gender sensitivity and women’s health issues were reflected in the planning processes of regional health authorities in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and (2) to provide information which the Prairie Women’s Health Centre of Excellence could use in advising governments, regional health bodies and others on how to make regional needs assessments and health plans more sensitive to the needs of women.

The research team evaluated needs assessment and health plan documents and interviewed key stakeholders within the regional health bodies that had provided the written documents. The study considered such issues as efforts undertaken to reduce barriers to participation in health planning, whether data were disaggregated by sex, the use of evidence-based decision making in the planning process, and collaborative initiatives between health authorities and women-serving organizations. A total of 8 out of 11 Manitoba Regional Health Authorities and 17 of the 32 Health Districts in Saskatchewan participated in the study.

The analysis of the needs assessments revealed that:

1. Gender was rarely considered as a variable in assessing local health needs and that consequently, the health needs of women were rarely considered separately from the health needs of men;
   
   
2. Regional health bodies published little sex-disaggregated data and had little access to sex-disaggregated data from other sources such as Statistics Canada or the provinces;
   
   
3. Despite a commitment from Manitoba Health that women’s health was a priority, Regional Health Authorities were not provided with information about women’s health nor given guidance on how to assess the health of women in their communities.

The analysis of the health plans revealed that:

1. Regional health bodies in Saskatchewan and Manitoba have not given high priority to women’s health;
   
   
2. Where women’s health issues were considered, the most frequent references were to sex and gender-specific health needs (i.e., reproductive health, breast and cervical cancer screening) and to women’s role as mothers;
   
   
3. Despite official support of a determinants of health approach, there is little evidence of it in the health plans reviewed in this study;
   
   
4. There was little evidence in the plans of an appreciation for the differing health needs of diverse groups of women, including Aboriginal women, women from ethnic and visible minorities, lesbian women and women with disabilities;
   
   
5. None of the regional health bodies surveyed reported any training on gender issues for staff, management or Board members;
   
   
6. Rather than recognizing the additional burden on women of providing informal care to family members and friends, regional health bodies have promoted it by emphasizing women’s presumed role as gatekeepers of family health.

The interviews with representatives of regional health bodies revealed that:

1. Women’s health was discussed in the context of three categories: reproduction, family members and health service utilization;
   
   
2. Despite a widespread understanding of the determinants of health, gender was seldom mentioned and the other determinants lacked a gender analysis;
   
   
3. In some instances, a "backlash" was noted: some people were concerned that "all this attention to women’s health" represents a loss for men and a threat to men’s health.

No significant differences were found between Manitoba and Saskatchewan with respect to gender and health planning, despite different political environments at the time of the study and different official policy priorities with respect to women’s health. There was, though, considerable variation among regional health bodies in their level of technical expertise in assessment planning, data collection and analysis. Rural regions are at a particular disadvantage with regard to both research literature and access to technical assistance.

We recommend that regional health bodies be required to collect and report gender disaggregated data in their needs assessments and health plans and that provincial ministries of health provide health bodies with the necessary training, expertise and funding to accomplish these tasks. We also recommend that provincial ministries improve access to health information and establish an appropriately staffed offices of women’s health with expertise in gender analysis to support the regional health bodies and other government departments which affect women’s health such as finance, social/family services, housing and seniors’ services.

For further information contact:
Prairie Women’s Health Centre Of Excellence
Room 2C11A – The University of Winnipeg
515 Portage Avenue
Winnipeg, Manitoba   Canada R3B 2E9
Tel: (204) 786-9048  Fax: (204) 774-4134
E-mail: pwhce@uwinnipeg.ca   Web site: www.pwhce.ca

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