ABSTRACT
This chapter explains commonalities and differences in health, by reviewing the major health problems affecting women and their determinants, then addressing the psychological aspects of women's health, health care, and, finally, local action to improve women's health. A World Bank report describes Third World women's health problems using a life-cycle approach. This approach highlights age-specific problems while considering the cumulative effects of poor health and nutrition throughout women's lives. Increasingly more young women are joining the industrial labor force in the rapidly developing countries of Asia and in the trade zones of Latin America. Women work in textile mills and in factories processing food, assembling electronics, manufacturing clothing, and packaging pharmaceuticals. Positive traditional practices may not have a substitute in modern medicine, so when they are abandoned, healthcare options are less rich. Third World women say that they are suffering the worst aspects of underdevelopment and development at the same time.
