A thought-provoking look at women’s health in developing nations! This book shows how war, military regimes, industrialization, urbanization, and social upheaval have all affected the choices Southeast Asian women make about their health and health care. When you read these first-person accounts from Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Burma, you’ll be drawn into the lives of women dealing with drastic changes in their societies. The meticulous case studies in this book examine how social, cultural, and economic forces contribute to the way women make personal health care decisions. Women’s Health in Mainland Southeast Asia offers a thought-provoking look into the lives of women in this developing part of the world. Topics addressed in Women’s Health in Mainland Southeast Asia include: a proposed new approach to women’s health, where treatment is determined by society, culture, and gender rather than by biology alone the relationship between menstruation and other aspects of life for Burmese women the politics of abortion in Thailand the difficulties of seeking care for reproductive tract infections in Vietnam the influence of local culture on the treatment of reproductive health problems in northeast Thailand occupational health hazards faced by women working in the electronics industry in northern Thailand the links between migration, sex work, and HIV/AIDS among female garment factory workers in Cambodia

Combine advocacy with community based participatory research to help those who can’t help themselves Recent natural, man-made, and health-related threats to our well-being have created a need for researchers to develop new interventions to help the marginalized populations of the world who are most affected by these threats. Women’s Health: New Frontiers in Advocacy & Social Justice Research explores the importance of intervention efforts when the researcher takes on the role of advocate to represent those who can’t represent themselves. This unique book examines how the marginalization of community groups, including refugee women, rural women, and Indigenous women, affects their access to the programs and services they need in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Women’s Health: New Frontiers in Advocacy & Social Justice Research looks at different levels of community preparation in the research process, examining implementations of the CBPR (Community Based Participatory Research) models that are specifically tailored to the needs of particular communities, including a project on cervical cancer initiated by the Indigenous women of Australia, and a five-year study of Type 2 diabetes by Hispanic women and researchers in the Western United States. The book’s articles—contributed by academics, practitioners, and researchers—focus primarily on the concept that rigorous research can be conducted while still attending to the needs of community members through a more action-oriented advocacy that promotes the special interests of those members. Women’s Health: New Frontiers in Advocacy & Social Justice Research examines: qualitative and quantitative research findings on women with refugee backgrounds in Australia and New Zealand healthcare experiences of women living in rural Victoria, Australia lay-health advocacy cost-effective options for reducing adverse health outcomes in resource-poor settings domestic violence advocacy cancer screening and treatment among Indigenous women in Queensland, Australia advocacy among Hispanic farmworkers in Southeast Idaho and much more Women’s Health: New Frontiers in Advocacy & Social Justice Research is an important resource on the role of advocacy in community based participatory research. The book is an essential professional resource for anyone working to address social injustice in marginalized communities.

Examine the importance of gender in health care training facilities and medicine! Teaching Gender, Teaching Women's Health presents case studies from Sweden, South Africa, Australia, and the United States that illustrate the importance of gender education for health care workers. Each study includes tips and strategies that can help you expand your professional perspective to include gender-related social understandings of health and illness. The case studies in this book highlight innovations that include changes in curricula or in the content of specific courses as well as new methodology and pedagogical approaches. These innovations are designed to support women in their training to be health professionals, enhance the quality of health care for women and transgender patients, and support research programs and studies that adopt a gender perspective. You will learn more about: the Women’s and Gender Studies Program provided at the Yale University School of Medicine: its history, pedagogical approaches, and the response it has received Idaho State University and its clinical medical anthropology course utilizing a gendered perspective to encourage students to think about the social aspects of illness the medical faculty of Göteborg University, Sweden, and its efforts to determine the impact created by its decision to include a gender-issues perspective in its curricula the University of Queensland and the University of Melbourne: the introduction of the Gynecology Teaching Associate program in Australia the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa, and its Women’s Health Project which provides a variety of gender and health training courses for health professionals Monash University, located in Melbourne, Australia, which teaches a curriculum unit entitled Gender Issues for Rural Doctors Teaching Gender, Teaching Women's Health also offers you recent research about a commonly overlooked issue: the inclusion of lesbian health in medical education programs. Each case study is well referenced and several include tables and statistics that support their findings. This book is vital to medical school faculty, health practitioners, medical students, and women’s health advocates.

Help lesbian and bisexual women better manage their physical health The lack of information about lesbian and bisexual women’s health can in part be attributed to the lack of health research focused on this population. Preventive Health Measures for Lesbian and Bisexual Women helps fill this gap by providing the latest empirical, evidence-based research to address current health care issues confronted by sexual minority women (SMW). This vital source explores several diverse factors constraining the ability of lesbian and bisexual women of color to receive proper health care and exercise preventative health measures including discrimination, oppression, and stigmatization. The reasons behind several SMW health risks are psychosocial and behavioral factors often not considered by health practitioners. Preventive Health Measures for Lesbian and Bisexual Women examines these factors in detail and provides a firm starting point for further research and ways to best address the challenges. Studies on SMW behavior and perceptions reveal how lesbians and bisexual women make choices on various vital health issues such as alcohol use, nutrition, weight management, exercise, safer sex practices, sunscreen use, and self-breast examination. The research in this book is of the highest quality, the discussions on the findings top-notch, and the conclusions important for every policymaker, health practitioner, and researcher to understand. Research topics in Preventive Health Measures for Lesbian and Bisexual Women include: the effects of lesbian or bisexual identity on preventative health behaviors cancer prevention and screening behaviors using American Cancer Society guidelines as the standards for comparison experiences with treating physicians and their attitudes—positive and negative ways to help lesbians with cancer receive better support by service providers and lesbian communities comparison between lesbian and heterosexual women of psychosocial responses to treatment for breast cancer qualitative study on lesbians who frequent bars characteristics of sexual minority women across four survey sampling methods Preventive Health Measures for Lesbian and Bisexual Women is timely, crucial information for health practitioners of all types, women’s activists, public health professionals, and researchers.

Provides fresh perspectives on the past, present and future-facing contributions of the anthropology of reproduction. A Companion to the Anthropology of Reproductive Medicine and Technology provides a timely and comprehensive overview of the anthropological study of reproductive practices, technologies, and interventions in a global context. Exploring the medical and technological management of human reproduction through a sociocultural lens, this groundbreaking volume reviews past and current research, discusses contemporary debates and recent theoretical developments, introduces key themes and trends, examines ongoing issues of equity, inclusivity, and reproductive justice around the world, and more. The Companion brings together essays by multidisciplinary scholars in fields including sociocultural anthropology, medical anthropology, reproductive health, global public health, Science and Technology Studies (STS), gender and sexuality studies, critical race studies, and environmental studies, to list but a few. Five thematically organized sections address reproductive practitioners and paradigms, global reproductive health and interventions, reproductive justice, the life-course approach to the study of reproductive health, and the future of reproductive technology and medicine. Using clear, jargon-free language, the authors investigate pregnancy and childbirth; fertility treatments; birth control, contraception and abortion; COVID-19 and reproduction; reproductive cancers; epigenetics; social discrimination; gender and sexualities and reproduction for LGBTQIA+ communities; race and reproduction; migration and reproduction; reproduction and war; reproductive health financing; reproduction and disabilities, reproduction and the environment; and other important contemporary topics. A cutting-edge guide to the modern study of reproduction, this groundbreaking volume: Provides an overview of the links between anthropological study and progressive work in medicine, healthcare, and technology Addresses both the challenges and opportunities facing researchers in the field Identifies gaps in current scholarship and offers recommendations for future research topics and methodologies Highlights the importance of ethnographic research combined with critical engagements with other disciplines for the anthropology of reproduction Explores the impact of socioeconomic conditions, environmental challenges, public policy, and legislation on reproductive health outcomes Traces the history of the field and demonstrates how anthropologists have engaged with issues of reproductive justice Part of the acclaimed Wiley Blackwell Companions to Anthropology series, A Companion to the Anthropology of Reproductive Medicine and Technology is an essential resource for undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and scholars in medical anthropology, science technology and society, cultural anthropology, ethnology, and gender studies, as well as medical practitioners, policymakers, and activists involved in global and public health and reproductive justice.

Although reproduction including infertility, abortion, childbearing and motherhood is a significant human experience, its social meaning is shaped by the culture in which birthing women live. Reproduction and its management, therefore, occur within the social and cultural context of the event. As such, reproductive beliefs and practices differ across social and cultural settings. This book focuses on reproduction, childbearing and motherhood. In this volume, the authors show that despite the modernisation of the society and advanced medical technology and knowledge in reproduction, traditions continue to exert influence on how the women and their families manage their reproduction, childbearing and motherhood in their societies.

In Thailand, infertility remains a source of stigma for those couples that combine a range of religious, traditional and high-tech interventions in their quest for a child. This book explores this experience of infertility and the pursuit and use of assisted reproductive technologies by Thai couples. Though using assisted reproductive technologies is becoming more acceptable in Thai society, access to and choices about such technologies are mediated by differences in class position. These stories of women and men in private and public infertility clinics reveal how local social and moral sensitivities influence the practices and meanings of treatment.

Medical practitioners and the ordinary citizen are becoming more aware that we need to understand cultural variation in medical belief and practice. The more we know how health and disease are managed in different cultures, the more we can recognize what is "culture bound" in our own medical belief and practice. The Encyclopedia of Medical Anthropology is unique because it is the first reference work to describe the cultural practices relevant to health in the world's cultures and to provide an overview of important topics in medical anthropology. No other single reference work comes close to marching the depth and breadth of information on the varying cultural background of health and illness around the world. More than 100 experts - anthropologists and other social scientists - have contributed their firsthand experience of medical cultures from around the world.

In recent years, first feminist considerations, and now concerns with HIV/Aids have led to new approaches to the study of sexuality. The experience of puberty, explorations with sexuality and courtship, and the pressure to reproduce are a few of the human tensions central to this volume.

Prostitution is strongly embedded in local cultural practices in Cambodia. Based on extensive original research, this book explores the nature of prostitution in Cambodia, providing explanations of why the phenomenon is so widely tolerated. It outlines the background of the French colonial period, with its filles malades, considers the contemporary legal framework, and analyses the motivations for sex work, examining in particular how women become locked into debt bondage. Overall the book provides significant contributions to wider debates about sex work, sex trafficking and the constrained nature of women’s choices.