Rethinking Women and Healthy Living in Canada

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Rethinking Women and Healthy Living in Canada

• Margaret Haworth-Brockman, Executive Director
• Prairie Womens Health Centre of Excellence
• Gender, Diversity and Health Workshop
• February 11, 2013

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Outline

• How we came to do this project
• What the project includes
• Our methods
• Some examples of our findings
• Where to from here

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Shifts Silver Linings

• New emphasis on Healthy Living for our work
• Opportunity to build on expertise in SGBA (to
  more open audiences?) discourse analysis and
  practical applications
• At PWHCE we had experience
• Profile of Womens Health in Manitoba
• Guidelines for practical applications of GBA for
  PAHO
• Collaboration on Rising to the Challenge, beyond
  GBA 101
• Recent work on Gender and Health Statistics
  commissioned by the WHO

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Rethinking Women and Healthy Living in Canada

• Collaboration by three Centres of Excellence for
  Womens Health
• National-level project
• A reconstruction and critique of the healthy
  living discourse
• SGBA of healthy living topics
• Exploration of a few healthy living strategies
• Promising practices

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Integrated Pan-Canadian Healthy Living Strategy
of 2005

• Goals are to improve overall health outcomes and
  reduce health disparities.
• Does not offer sex-specific targets nor make
  provisions to address the determinants of
  healthwhich include sex and genderin
  measurement, reporting or formulation of policies
  and programs.

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Healthy Living Discourse

• Some contradictions
• Individual vs. social responsibility for health
• Individual vs. collective and systemic solutions
  for chronic diseases

• Leading to
• Transformation of risk and probability for
  populations into certain danger for individuals
• Focus on physical health rather than mental
  health
• Blame for certain types of illnesses
• Limited attention to context of healthy living
  and sex, gender, diversity as well as the
  determinants of health

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A Profile of Women and Healthy Living in Canada
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Healthy Living Topics

• Each snapshot includes current rates,
  sex-specific details, gendered influences, risk
  factors, critique of measures, and policy
  implications.
• Women in Canada, 15 years and older - mostly

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Health Indicator Framework
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National-Level Data Sources

• Canadian Community Health Survey, including
  CCHS-Nutrition Module, Cycle 2.2, 2004 CCHS,
  Cycle 3.1, 2005 and annuals 2007-2008 and
  2009-2010.
• Canadian Health Measures Survey, Cycle 1, 2007-
  2009
• Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey, Annual
  2010
• Canadian Alcohol and Drug Use Monitoring Survey,
  2010
• National Trauma Registry, Comprehensive Dataset
  (NTR-CDS)
• General Social Survey-Victimization Cycle 2009
• Association of Workers Compensation Boards of
  Canada, National Work Injury Statistics Program
  (AWCBC - NWISP)
• Census of Agriculture, 2001 and 2006
• Public Health Agency of Canada, Sexually
  Transmitted Infections Surveillance Data

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Analytical Process

• Definition of issues measures
• Gathering Informationreview of data add gender
  contexts, meaning, experience
• Analytical Inquiryasking challenging questions
• Implications Lessons to build gender sensitive
  strategies

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SGBA of Healthy Living Strategies

• Sex- and gender-informed discussion on healthy
  living strategies in Canada at various levels of
  government.
• Review of strategy documents plus consultations
  with policy makers about how gender has been
  considered in their healthy living strategies.
• Detailed examination of strategies in Prince
  Edward Island, Ontario, Manitoba and British
  Columbia

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Gender-Sensitive Practices, Policies and
Programs in Healthy Living

• Scoping review of research on gender-sensitive
  promising practices in healthy living.
• Selected examples of promising practices,
  policies and programs related to our ten healthy
  living topics.
• Recommendations for future directions to advance
  healthy living in Canada for women.

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Some Quick Results

• Women with higher incomes are more likely to take
  part in physical activity, but are also more
  likely to drink heavily
• Aboriginal women less likely to drink heavily
• We know very little about sexual behaviour for
  women over the age of 49 or those not considered
  high risk
• All women show excessive sedentary behaviour
• Tobacco smoking rates are largely declining,
  except among young women and women who use
  smoking as a coping behaviour
• Older women find food labels complicated, and
  they dont necessarily prefer cooking programs
• Occupational injury data may under-represent
  womens injuries in certain sectors

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Conclusions

• A gender lens on healthy living can shift our
  understanding of, and responses to, the needs of
  women in Canada.
• Responses to healthy living for women in Canada
  might look different if they incorporate sex,
  gender, diversity and equity.
• A sex and gender lens can allow the Pan-Canadian
  Healthy Living Strategy and provincial strategies
  to address the inequities that prevent healthy
  living for women.

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More Information

• The Source
• www.womenshealthdata.ca

Fact Sheets
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Acknowledgements
Co-authors Ann Pederson, Barbara Clow, Harpa
Isfeld, Anna Liwander and Linda Snyder This
project was made possible through a contribution
from Health Canada
Thank you! Questions or comments m.haworth-brockm
an_at_uwinnipeg.ca apederson_at_cw.bc.ca b.clow_at_dal.ca