Midlife care should consider the whole woman, with preventive attention to osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease. A new delivery system, using a skin patch, is available for replacement or additive hormonal therapy. Useful hormonal therapy may incl...

The prevalence of illicit drug use is higher among men than women, but new drug use occurs at twice the rate for females as for males. Recent data from emergency rooms and medical examiners support this pattern, but females were more likely than male...

The relationship between diet and disease has become a key component of health promotion and disease prevention efforts to assist the public in improving their overall health status. The definition of nutrition is in the process of transformation; it...

Although much research has been carried out on communication between health care providers and patients, relatively few studies have investigated the effects of patient or provider gender on the communication process or its outcomes. Women use health...

Communication barriers between health care providers and older women are multifaceted and complex. The acute care, hospital-based orientation of the health care system tends to bypass the characteristic problems of older women who need services. Brea...

There is a direct connection between the doctor-patient relationship and the quality of care. An increase in female and minority physicians leads to a corresponding increase in physician perspective, which allows for improved identification with the ...

The physician assistant (PA) has been on the leading edge in the development of midlevel health providers since the 1960s. As an allied health professional, PAs, along with nurse practitioners, midwives, nurse anesthetists, and others, emphasize pati...

A wide range of resources are available to enhance the communication and education of women. The patient's attitude should connote a sense of rights as a patient and allow for the request of information from the health care provider without discomfor...

The report of the Public Health Service Task Force on Women's Health Issues identifies five social factors which affect health and also apply to nutrition: cultural and social values, which are at the heart of issues of body size; economic status, wh...

In the United States, women live longer than men, and they have lower death rates at virtually every age and for most causes of death. The sex differential in mortality has been increasing since the early 1900s, especially for those 15-24 and 55-64 y...

The issues and concerns of the 85 percent of essentially healthy women who have normal pregnancies and births are reviewed. The importance of their issues in relation to their health care and outcomes is discussed.

Women can adopt health practices that will help them to maintain good health throughout their various life stages. Women can take charge of their health by maintaining a nutritionally balanced diet, exercising, and using common sense. Women can also ...

Great progress on key issues in maternal nutrition has been made in the past few years, mainly because of the legislative requirements of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC Pro...

Incontinence has about a 15 percent prevalence among elderly women. Some of the factors associated with incontinence are psychosocial implications of stigmatization, the decreased quality of life, and the economic considerations of nursing home costs...

Attaining the goal of appropriate medical care for older women requires knowledge of the changes of aging, skills in recognition and treatment of disease, and an effort to provide help and avoid harm. Iatrogenic disorders are particularly problematic...

In a prospective study, prenatal risk factors for mental retardation were identified in two large samples of white and black children followed from gestation to age 7 years in the Collaborative Perinatal Project. Important antecedents of severe and m...

The American Medical Women's Association has chosen as one of its strategic goals for the next year, and probably for a lot longer, preventing young women from smoking. Smoking is of great concern to all as the death rate from lung cancer among women...

Public policy is an area of increasing study. Of concern in this presentation is the consensus-building feature of policymaking in the United States. The role of government in following the procedures established to achieve consensus and the importan...

A collection of over 200 symptoms has been labeled premenstrual syndrome. Common belief is that most women experience a marked increase in symptoms premenses. Cyclic variations in the prevalence of commonly cited perimenstrual symptoms were estimated...

A number of radiographic and nuclear medicine techniques are available for the assessment of patients suspected of having osteoporosis or at risk for the development of osteoporosis. Spinal radiographs are insensitive indicators of osteoporosis. They...