Five Things to Know About Women's Health

by Alanna Shaikh · 2009-03-08 23:30:00 UTC
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(photo credit: MckaySavage)

In honor of International Women's Day, here are five things you need to know about women and global health.

1.       Women die in childbirth every minute.

2.       Females have better biological odds of survival than men. Female fetuses are hardier, infant mortality is lower in girls, and average life span is generally longer for women than men. That means that if your numbers are skewed the other way, with more men and boys surviving, something is very, very wrong with your society.

3.       Women are far less likely to smoke than men. Ten times less likely.

4.       A ten-country study conducted by the WHO found that between 24-40% of women surveyed stated that their first sexual experience was not consensual. Violent or coercive sex carries a much higher risk of HIV transmission.

5.       More and more girls are being forced to become child soldiers, but we don't have any real data on it. Researchers have tended to assume girls were being used as servents or sex slaves, not combatants. This is increasingly untrue.

Alanna Shaikh
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