Household Headship and Women’s Health: An Exploratory Study from Egypt | ||
| The Egyptian Journal of Community Medicine | ||
| Article 1, Volume 37, Issue 2, April 2019, Pages 1-9 PDF (493.25 K) | ||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/ejcm.2019.30908 | ||
| Abstract | ||
| Background: Despite of the efforts done to achieve women’s empowerment as one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, women still suffer from unequal access to education besides several illnesses contributing to chronic diseases development. Women Headed Families (WHF) are a major concern nowadays as it can be considered as a risk factor for many morbidities and social problems. Therefore, this study was conducted to draw attention to the uprising vulnerability trend of WHF. Objectives: to compare the socio-demographic characteristics and pattern of morbidities between females heading families and those who do not. Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted at Met-Rahena Village in Egypt. A purposive sample of 886 females were interviewed. The questionnaire included questions about education, work status, and several morbidities. Data was analyzed using SPSS 20.0. The Chi-square or Fisher Exact tests were used to analyze the association between variables. Results: The mean age of the females heading a family was (47.3) years, which was significantly higher than the mean age of females not heading a family (36.1) years. The studied types of morbidities appeared to be represented higher in the group of females heading a family than in the other group, namely; hypertension, diabetes mellitus, GIT diseases, ophthalmological problems and musculoskeletal disorders (p <0.05). Conclusion and Recommendation: As the health status of women heading families is not desirable, so there is a great need for effective interventions directed to this vulnerable group to improve their quality of life. | ||
| Keywords | ||
| women’s health; female household headship; morbidity | ||
|
Statistics Article View: 290 PDF Download: 524 |
||
