Women’s Health is Everyone’s Business

Empowerment and health are intricately connected and one of the goals of our discipline is to empower individuals and communities to have a voice and to care for themselves. For women in particular, empowerment through good health enables women to reach their full potential, to manage their own lives, and to influence key decisions that shape their lives and families. Empowering women through good health requires equitable access to healthcare, and new preventive healthcare provisions outlined in the Affordable Care Act demonstrate that women’s health is everyone’s business.

The Affordable Care Act calls for important women’s preventive healthcare including mammograms, screenings for cervical cancer, and prenatal care to be offered at no cost to the patient. Notably, the Affordable Care Act also addresses the unique health needs of women throughout their lifespan in eight critical areas:

• Well-woman visits
• Screening for gestational diabetes
• Human papillomavirus testing
• Counseling for sexually transmitted infections
• Counseling and screening for HIV
• Contraceptive methods and counseling
• Breastfeeding support, supplies, and counseling
• Screening and counseling for interpersonal and domestic violence

These guidelines, developed by the Institute of Medicine and supported by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, will give women the benefits of comprehensive preventive services without the burden of co-payments, co-insurance, or deductibles starting in August 2012.

Recognition of the importance of women’s health is cresting. In April, the fifth Colloquium of University Presidents, meeting here at the University of Pennsylvania and hosted by President Amy Gutmann, addressed what universities and the United Nations can do to empower women to change the world.

“Women have the potential to be the world’s most powerful catalysts for change,” the group emphasized, and advocated that the United Nations consider women’s health a matter of global importance by stimulating “innovative programs for vulnerable women and girls . . . [working] to end violence, improve universal access to healthcare and education, eliminate gendered poverty, and improve employment opportunities of women.”

With the prominence of the health of girls and women in the Affordable Care Act, the U.S. is already engaged in creating healthier and more productive families, communities, and societies because the health of the female population is rightfully a priority.

Universities, particularly schools of nursing in our education of healthcare professionals, have a vital role in ensuring that women are well aware of their rights for healthcare, that we join women in developing a strong voice to ensure they have these rights, and that they are exercising the best practices to keep themselves healthy. There is perhaps no more important ingredient to empowerment than good health.