Including Gender in Health Planning

The Prairie Women's Health Centre of Excellence and Manitoba Health, as part of the Women's Health Strategy endorsed by the Minister of Health and Minister Responsible for the Status of Women in 2000, have jointly developed a guide to gender-based analysis for health programmers and planners in Regional Health Authorities. The guide is designed to assist individuals to incorporate gender into the processes of analyzing data, planning programs and assessing the health of the community.

Gender-based Analysis (GBA) is a tool to help understand how the experiences of women and men, boys and girls, are different, and how they are the same. In the case of health, GBA illuminates the differences in health status, health care utilization and health needs of men and women. It helps to identify and give priority to those areas where different programs or treatments may be necessary to improve the health of women and men and boys and girls.

The guide provides some background and history on gender-based analysis and presents two case studies, one on diabetes and another on depression, self-inflicted injuries and suicide, as examples of GBA in action. Both are based on information from Manitoba Health about health services utilization among Manitobans. In each case study, the importance of examining health data by sex, age, culture and other factors becomes clear.

Sex refers to the biological differences between females and males while gender refers to the array of socially constructed roles and relationships, behaviours, characteristics and relative power between the two sexes. The following example considers both sex and gender. Over 5% of Manitobans in 1999 were living with diabetes; of these, 29,850 were women and 27,541 were men. When data on adult diabetes are examined by sex, it is possible to see that while new cases of diabetes have increased for both men and women since 1994, there have been more new cases reported annually among men. When age and Aboriginal ancestry are considered, other important pieces of the picture are revealed. Women are more likely than men to be diagnosed with diabetes from ages 15 to 39, while men are more likely to be diagnosed from ages 40 and up. In every age group, First Nations women have the highest rate of diabetes, compared to First Nations men and other Canadian women and men. As well, men are at much greater risk of developing complications of diabetes than women. A gender-based analysis of diabetes data strongly suggests the need for gender-sensitive diabetes prevention and treatment programs.

Gender-based Analysis can enrich the health planning process by providing better information about the health status and health needs of the population. This guide includes a checklist and series of questions designed to increase the capacity of planners to use GBA in the entire health planning process. By highlighting gender differences, planners can identify and give priority to those areas where gender-sensitive interventions will make a difference.

A full copy of the report, Including Gender in Health Planning: A Guide for Regional Health Authorities, can be downloaded at: www.pwhce.ca/gba.htm, or contact:

Prairie Women's Health Centre of Excellence

56 The Promenade

Winnipeg, MB

Canada R3B 3H9

www.pwhce.ca

Tel: (204) 982-6630

Fax: (204) 982-6637

pwhce@uwinnipeg.ca

Lissa Donner, Prairie Women's Centre of Excellence for Health

Copyright Centres of Excellence for Women's Health Spring 2005
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