As economic crisis in Africa deepens, questions of health and health care become more pressing and complicated. Often lost in the debate are the special concerns of women, whose roles in African societies are frequently misunderstood and misinterpreted, and consequently whose health needs are underestimated. Fourteen authors with a wide range of experiences in Africa have collaborated to create this invaluable contribution tot he literature which will be helpful for all those working to improve the health of women. They ask the questions that so many have ignored. Women and Health in Africa examines how the system of apartheid and the destabilization of war impact upon black nurses, domestic workers, and peasant women and adolescents of southern Africa. It asks "what are the creative ways in which AIDS education is being conducted in Africa?" It tackles sensitive and complex issues of family planning and reproductive health such as how women of Algeria strive to take control over their fertility and how dangerous anti-fertility programs have been undertaken in Namibia. African women are seen here as active participants int heir political economics, struggling for empowerment and to overcome the many obstacles they encounter in their quest for better lives for themselves and their children.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MEREDETH TURSHEN holds a doctorate in political science and teaches at the Rutgers University Faculty of Planning and at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. She worked for twelve years in the United Nations system with UNICEF and the World Health Organization. She has published two previous books, The Political Ecology of Disease in Tanzania and The Politics of Health.

CATEGORY
Health, Women's Studies/AFRICA