Ten top issues forwomen's health

Today is the International Women's Day. It is a day to celebrate women and their achievements. It is also a day to take stock of how women's rights, especially the right to health, are fulfilled in the world.

20 years after countries signed pledges in the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action, women still face many health problems and we must re-commit to addressing them.

According to Dr Flavia Bustreo, Assistant Director General for Family, Women's and Children's Health through the Life-course, World Health Organisation, following are ten of the main issues of women's health.

CANCER: Two of the most common cancers affecting women are breast and cervical cancers. Detecting both these cancers early is key to keeping women alive and healthy. The latest global figures show that around half a million women die from cervical cancer and half a million from breast cancer each year. The vast majority of these deaths occur in low and middle income countries where screening, prevention and treatment are almost non-existent, and where vaccination against human papilloma virus needs to take hold.

REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH: Sexual and reproductive health problems are responsible for one third of health issues for women between the ages of 15 and 44 years. Unsafe sex is a major risk factor – particularly among women and girls in developing countries. This is why it is so important to get services to the women who are not getting the contraception services they need.

MATERNAL HEALTH: Many women are now benefitting from massive improvements in care during pregnancy and childbirth. But those benefits do not extend everywhere and in 2013, almost 300,000 women died from complications in pregnancy and childbirth. Most of these deaths could have been prevented.

HIV: Too many young women still struggle to protect themselves against sexual transmission of HIV and to get the treatment they require. This also leaves them particularly vulnerable to tuberculosis – one of the leading causes of death in low-income countries of women 20–59 years.

SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED INFECTIONS: It is vital to do a better job of preventing and treating diseases like gonorrhoea, chlamydia and syphilis. Untreated syphilis is responsible for more than 200,000 stillbirths and early foetal deaths every year, and for the deaths of over 90,000 newborns.

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN: Women can be subject to a range of different forms of violence. It is important for health workers to be alert to violence so they can help prevent it, as well as provide support to people who experience it.

MENTAL HEALTH: Evidence suggests that women are more prone than men to experience anxiety, depression, and somatic complaints – physical symptoms that cannot be explained medically. Depression is the most common mental health problem for women and suicide a leading cause of death for women under 60. Helping sensitise women to mental health issues, and giving them the confidence to seek assistance, is vital.

NONCOMMUNICABLE DISEASES: In 2012, some 4.7 million women died from noncommunicable diseases before they reached the age of 70 —most of them in low- and middle-income countries. Helping girls and women adopt healthy lifestyles early on is key to a long and healthy life.

BEING YOUNG: Adolescent girls face a number of sexual and reproductive health challenges: STIs, HIV, and pregnancy. About 13 million adolescent girls (under 20) give birth every year. Complications from those pregnancies and childbirth are a leading cause of death for those young mothers. Many suffer the consequences of unsafe abortion.

GETTING OLDER: Having often worked in the home, older women may have fewer pensions and benefits, less access to health care and social services than their male counterparts. Combine the greater risk of poverty with other conditions of old age, like dementia, and older women also have a higher risk of abuse and generally, poor health.

It is imperative to strengthen health systems and ensure that countries have robust financing systems and sufficient numbers of well-trained, motivated health workers.

Source: World Health Organisation