Gender Issues

Study on the Readiness of the Political, Legal, Health and Community Systems to Respond to Gender-Based Violence in Three Districts of the City of Kigali

This study examines the ability of political, legal, health, and communities to respond to gender-based violence in Kigali, Rwanda. [from publisher]

Twubakane Gender-Based Violence/Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV Readiness Assessment Toolkit

The Twubakane Gender-Based Violence/Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV Readiness Assessment is a toolkit to assess the readiness of service providers, service facilities, the community and the policy environment to respond to gender-based violence at antenatal care/prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV service sites and in the community. Each file is a downloadable MS Word document, in English or French, that can be customized for the user’s location. [from publisher]

Gender Equality in Human Resources for Health: What Does This Mean and What Can We Do?

This paper discusses the meaning of gender equality in the context of human resources for health, and offers practical ways to address it. [from publisher]

Access to Non-Pecuniary Benefits: Does Gender Matter? Evidence from Six Low- and Middle-Income Countries

There is an accumulating body of evidence on gender differences in health workers’ employment patterns and pay, but inequalities in access to non-pecuniary benefits between men and women have received little attention. This study investigates empirically whether gender differences can be observed in health workers’ access to non-pecuniary benefits across six low- and middle-income countries. [from abstract]

Family Medicine Graduates' Perceptions of Intimidation, Harassment and Discrimination During Residency Training

The purpose of the study was to examine intimidation, harassment and/or discrimination as reported by Alberta family medicine graduates during their two-year residency program. [from abstract]

Screening of Women for Intimate Partner Violence: A Pilot Intervention at an Outpatient Department in Tanzania

This study evaluated the feasibility of health worker training on and use of an abuse screening tool for women attending an outpatient department as a health care intervention to address gender-based violence. [adapted from author]

Global Strategy to Stop Health-Care Providers from Performing Female Genital Mutilation

This strategy document introduces the issue of female genital mutilation (FGM) as it relates to health workers, the scale of the problem in the medical field, challenges to be addressed concerning medicalization of FGM, and strategies to accelerate progress from health care providers and national authorities. [adapted from author]

Work Related Characteristics, Work-Home and Home-Work Interference and Burnout among Primary Healthcare Physicians: a Gender Perspective in a Serbian Context

This study examined work related characteristics, work-home and home-work interference and burnout among Serbian primary healthcare physicians and compared burnout levels with other medical doctors in European Union countries. [from abstract]

Workplace Violence and Gender Discrimination in Rwanda's Health Workforce: Increasing Safety and Gender Equality

This article reexamines a set of study findings that directly relate to the influence of gender on workplace violence, synthesizes these findings with other research from Rwanda, and examines the subsequent impact of the study on Rwanda’s policy environment. [from abstract]

Occupational Segregation, Gender Essentialism and Male Primacy as Major Barriers to Equity in HIV Care Giving: Findings from Lesotho

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]

Advancing Women's Leadership and Advocacy for AIDS Action Training Manual

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.

Gender and the Professional Career of Primary Care Physicians in Andalusia (Spain)

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]

Mainstreaming Gender in the Health Sector: Prevention of Gender-Based Violence and Male Involvement in Reproductive Health

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]

Integrating Gender into the Curricula for Health Professionals

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]

Improving the Health Care Response to Gender-Based Violence: Project Evaluation Report

This study investigated the change of awareness and perception towards gender-based violence (GBV) following a training project in Vietnam designed to educate health workers on the issues; evaluated changes in practice in integrating screening and treatment of GBV victims into medical and reproductive health services; and solicited recommendations from health staff about future GBV interventions. [adapted from author]

Crucial Role of Health Services in Responding to Gender-Based Violence

Health care organizations are in a key position to break the silence and offer critical care to women who might otherwise face violence and its health consequences for many years. Health professionals are often the earliest point of contact for survivors of gender-based violence. They are also in a unique position to change societal attitudes by reframing violence as a health problem. [from author]

Summary of the 'So What?' Report: a Look at Whether Integrating a Gender Focus into Programmes Makes a Difference to Outcomes

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]

Manual for Integrating Gender into Reproductive Health and HIV Programs: from Commitment to Action

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]

How to Integrate Gender into HIV/AIDS Programs: Using Lessons Learned from USAID and Partner Organizations

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]

Reproductive Health Services and Intimate Partner Violence: Shaping a Pragmatic Response in Sub-Saharan Africa

This article examines the context of intimate partner violence in Sub-Saharan Africa, outlines the intersections between partner violence and reproductive health, and considers the opportunities for linkage at the program and service levels. [adapted from author]

IGWG Gender and Health Toolkit

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]

Healthy Images of Manhood: a Male Engagement Approach for Workplaces and Community Programs Integrating Gender, Family Planning and HIV/AIDS

This paper describes a project that has implemented an integrated male engagement program to address gender and family planning/reproductive health in a workplace HIV/AIDS Program. [from author]

Gender-Related Power Differences, Beliefs and Reactions Towards People Living with HIV/AIDS: an Urban Study in Nigeria

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]

Challenge and Change: Integrating the Challenge of Gender Norms and Sexuality in a Maternal Health Program

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]

Meeting Challenges, Seeding Change: Integrating Gender and Sexuality into Maternal and Newborn Health Programming through the Inner Spaces, Outer Faces Initiative (ISOFI)

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]

Health Sector and Gender-Based Violence in the Time of War

In countries where conflict-related and gender-based violence is taking place, the health sector can contribute by providing essential medical interventions and support for survivors, documentation for legal cases, programs that assist in reducing social stigma, and data for effective programming. [from summary]

Constructive Men's Engagement in Reproductive Health: A Training-of-Trainer's Manual

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]

Conceptual and Practical Foundations of Gender and Human Resources for Health

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.

Alleviating the Burden of Responsibility: Men as Providers of Community-Based HIV/AIDS Care and Support in Lesotho

In Lesotho, as in many other countries, the HIV and AIDS care burden falls on the shoulders of women and girls in unpaid, invisible household and community work. This gender inequity in HRH needs to be addressed to ensure fair and sustainable responses to the need for home and community-based HIV/AIDS care and support. The Capacity Project addressed these issues through a study of men as providers of HIV/AIDS care and support. [from author]

Workplace Violence and Gender Discrimination in the Health Sector in Rwanda

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]