Gender, Health and Development in the Americas. Basic Indicators 2005

Abstract

[Preface]: The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), through its Gender, Ethnicity, and Health Unit, is pleased to present the second edition of the brochure “Gender, Health, and Development in the Americas, Basic Indicators 2005.” Consistent with its commitment to promote gender equity in health, PAHO has established information generation and dissemination as a basic line of its technical cooperation in this area. Through this publication, PAHO seeks to provide government, civil society, academia, and other cooperation agencies with a set of basic statistical indicators that illustrate the differences between women and men in terms of health status and its socioeconomic determinants. The indicators selected for this publication correspond to the lines of action agreed on by Member States in the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo (1994); the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing (1995); and the Millennium Declaration (2000) regarding the pursuit for gender equality. It is important to note that gender equality and women’s empowerment are one of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); moreover, this goal has been widely recognized as a prerequisite for attaining the other MDGs. Gender equality in health means that women and men enjoy the same opportunities to maintain their health, contribute to the development of public health, and benefit from that development. Empowerment is understood as the ability to make decisions and put them into practice. It is a both process and a goal, occurring at both the individual and group levels and requiring that women act as agents of change. Without women’s empowerment, gender equality is not achievable...