Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2010 May-Jun;101(3):259-61.
doi: 10.1007/BF03404386.

Igniting an agenda for health promotion for women: critical perspectives, evidence-based practice, and innovative knowledge translation

Ann Pederson  1 , Pamela Ponic, Lorraine Greaves, Sue Mills, Jan Christilaw, Wendy Frisby, Karin Humphries, Nancy Poole, Lynne Young
Affiliations

Igniting an agenda for health promotion for women: critical perspectives, evidence-based practice, and innovative knowledge translation

Ann Pederson et al. Can J Public Health. 2010 May-Jun.

Abstract
in English, French

Health promotion is a set of strategies for positively influencing health through a range of individual, community-based, and population interventions. Despite international recognition that gender is a primary determinant of health and that gender roles can negatively affect health, the health promotion field has not yet articulated how to integrate gender theoretically or practically into its vision. For example, interventions often fail to critically consider women's or men's diverse social locations, gender-based power relations, or sex-based differences in health status. Yet without such analyses, interventions can result in the accommodation or exploitation of gender relations that disadvantage women and compromise their health. In this paper, we seek to ignite an agenda for health promotion for women. We discuss the need for a conceptual framework that includes a sex-gender-diversity analysis and critically considers 'what counts' as health promotion to guide the development and implementation of evidence-based practice. We also consider how innovative knowledge translation practices, technology developments and action research can advance this agenda in ways that foster the participation of a wide range of stakeholders.

La promotion de la santé est un ensemble de stratégies qui visent à influencer positivement la santé au moyen d’une gamme d’interventions individuelles, collectives ou axées sur une population. On reconnaît à l’échelle internationale que le sexe est l’un des principaux déterminants de la santé et que les rôles sexuels peuvent nuire à la santé. Pourtant, les intervenants en promotion de la santé n’ont pas encore énoncé comment intégrer les sexospécificités dans leur vision, ni en théorie, ni en pratique. Par exemple, on omet souvent, dans les interventions, de tenir compte de façon critique de l’écart entre les femmes et les hommes dans l’échelle sociale, des relations de pouvoir fondées sur le sexe ou des différences dans l’état de santé selon le sexe. Sans de telles analyses, ces interventions peuvent entraîner des accommodements ou une exploitation des relations hommes-femmes qui désavantagent les femmes et qui compromettent leur santé. Dans cet article, nous voulons dresser un plan de promotion de la santé des femmes. Nous expliquons le besoin d’un cadre conceptuel incluant une analyse de la diversité sexuelle-sexospécifique et un examen critique de „ ce qui compte ” dans la promotion de la santé pour orienter la création et la mise en œuvre de pratiques fondées sur les preuves. Nous examinons aussi comment les pratiques novatrices d’application des connaissances, les développements technologiques et la recherche-action peuvent appuyer ce plan d’action de manière à favoriser la participation d’un vaste éventail d’acteurs du milieu.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. O’Neill M, Pederson A, Dupéré S, Rootman I, editors. Health Promotion in Canada: Critical Perspectives, 2nd Ed. Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc.; 2007.
    1. Health Canada. Exploring Concepts of Gender and Health. Ottawa, ON: Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada; 2003.
    1. Reid C, Pederson A, Dupéré S. Addressing diversity in health promotion: Implications of women’s health and intersectional theory. In: O’Neill M, Pederson A, Dupéré S, Rootman I, editors. Health Promotion in Canada: Critical Perspectives. Toronto, ON: Canadian Scholars’ Press Inc.; 2007. pp. 75–89.
    1. Sen G. Östlin P. Unequal, Unfair, Ineffective and Inefficient. Gender Inequity in Health: Why It Exists and How We Can Change It. 2007. - PubMed
    1. Health Canada. Women’s Health Strategy. Ottawa: Women’s Health Bureau; 1999.