Health Policies and equality between Women and Men

Abstract

Mainstreaming is an institutional strategy of the World Health Organization. This strategy has the purpose of implementing the gender perspective in the public policies of the States. The Madrid Declaration is a key document in relation to mainstreaming in health policies. Mainstreaming in health express the evolution from a conception of health as absence of disease to one that contemplates the social determinants. Some of the social determinants that affect women's health are the sexual division of work, the ideals of beauty, gender violence, market economy and environmental pollution. The objective of this article is to emphasize the need for health policies (in order to apply mainstreaming) to try to remove those social factors (such as gender violence) that affect women's health and, therefore, should be considered public health issues.