Helping Health Workers contextualize and de-stigmatize community action for women's health

Background: In the Americas, 33% of women experience partner violence in their lifetimes, and survivors are at higher risk for miscarriages, STIs, and unintended pregnancies. This suggests a need for health materials that not only help health educators intersectionally discuss topics including sexuality, family planning, unsafe abortion, STIs, and violence, but also provide strategies to reduce stigma, foster dialogue, and involve men.

Objective: Hesperian drafted women’s health materials with activities, stories, and tools derived from the experiences of women and communities globally to help educators address social barriers, attitudes, and practices which harm women and girls.

Methods: Community-based groups in 23 countries participated in field-testing, responding to two surveys which polled educators about their confidence levels teaching “taboo” topics such as abortion, STIs violence and family planning. Educators were polled once before receiving the materials to assess baseline comfort, and once after teaching classes using the materials.

Results: Educators from 17 organizations in 14 countries reported increased confidence addressing controversial topics after using field-testing materials. 80% of respondents reported feeling ‘significantly more comfortable’ presenting on topics including “How gender roles affect health,” “sexuality,” and “violence against women,” than prior to field-testing. All groups reported learning new information and increasing teacher comfort levels.

Conclusion: Field-testing concluded in 2013, and in 2015 Hesperian released  a book entitled Health Actions for Women based on tested materials, which will soon be freely available on Hesperian’s online HealthWiki. The book complements this library of pre-existing health content, which served 4.6 million unique visitors in 2014.