Improving the health and life chances of women in disadvantaged communities

Abstract

Health and opportunities for health are not equally distributed in our community; for most measures of disease the least advantaged have almost a doubling of risk compared to the most advantaged. While the health differentials between women are often narrower than between men, when examining mortality and morbidity by any measure of social class (such as education, employment status, or place of residence) it is the similarities between men and women within each socio-economic group that is more striking than the differences between genders.