ABSTRACT
This chapter examines health problems vary with life stage and explores gender patterns of tropical diseases are changing. It provides violence is a health problem with social, economic and political causes and presents changing men’s attitudes is very important. Spatial differences in gendered health problems have rarely been considered but are becoming increasingly complex as international flows of population increase. The increased cost of health care has immediate effects on attendance at clinics, but may stimulate interest in family planning as a way of cutting costs by reducing the number of children born. In the transition countries, the collapse of state health services and the need to pay for medical care and to be proactive in seeking care have led to generally declining health and the emergence of resistant strains of diseases such as tuberculosis. The health of prepubescent girls may suffer if they are exposed to sexual abuse.
