Improving Women's Access to Women Sensitive Health and Wellbeing Information

Since women are the main decision makers for family health issues and the main family carers, their access to appropriate health and wellbeing information is crucial in order to make informed choices about their health and wellbeing. Most healthy women do not have a consistent or regular need for health information, and as a result they do not become familiar with methods of accessing health information.

There are many sources of health information in Australia, both government and non-government, but there is usually little integration between the different information providers which might help women identify the most appropriate piece of information for their needs. The focus of health information providers has often been on improving the content of their health information rather than improving ways for women to identify, source and obtain it. This makes the activities involved in identifying, sourcing and obtaining the most relevant information for their needs quite complex and confusing for women.

Improving women’s access to gender sensitive health information is one of the key areas of the WCHM 2008-2012 Strategic Plan. Our focus is on advocating for and facilitating access to good quality information for ACT women and improving the skills of women who are marginalised or disadvantaged in accessing health information.

By focussing on improving women’s access to women-sensitive health and wellbeing information WCHM hopes to achieve system-wide improvements in the provision of information and demonstrably effective strategies for building women’s capacity to access health and wellbeing information that meets their needs.

WHCM works to achieve these outcomes by:

• Developing a better understanding of the ways in which (different groups of) women prefer to access health and wellbeing information
• Identifying gaps in health and wellbeing information as well as barriers to accessing information
• Advocating to increase the availability and accessibility of gender-sensitive information
• Working in ways that will assist women to build their own capacity to seek and access the information necessary to support informed health choices
• Linking ACT women to credible and trustworthy health and wellbeing information

Current WCHM Projects

The Online Women’s Health and Wellbeing Hub

The Women’s Health and Wellbeing Hub is an online information portal that provides links to credible and trustworthy information about health, wellbeing and services specific to women in the ACT. It will be a central source of already existing information, and will focus on the gaps identified by ACT women.

This Hub is being created in partnership with other ACT organisations and service providers, and is a direct response to the needs expressed by ACT women published in It goes with the Territory! It will provide women with a free, useful, up-to-date and trustworthy source of information on matters affecting them now, or matters that may affect them in the future. Through enabling women to access information, the Hub will enhance women’s ability to make informed health decisions and health behaviour changes.

The Women's Health and Wellbeing Hub is currently under construction. An abbreviated list of links to health and wellbeing websites can be accessed by following the link on the left-hand navigation called which service do I need?

Website Checking Tool

Over the coming months WCHM will be creating a tool to assist women in navigating information on the Internet by giving them eight simple steps to gauge the quality, confidentiality and trustworthiness of online health and wellbeing information. The tool will not enable women to assess the scientific accuracy of the information, but will point them in the right direction to finding information they can rely on. This initiative aims to further encourage women to develop a greater understanding of their health and therefore enable them to make more informed health decisions, with the support of primary healthcare services. WCHM does not recommend obtaining health and wellbeing information from the Internet in place of consulting with a health professional.

Research Report: It goes with the Territory! ACT Women’s Views about Health and Wellbeing Information

In 2010, WCHM launched It goes with the Territory! ACT Women's views about Health and Wellbeing Information, which was the result of an extensive study into the health and wellbeing information needs and seeking trends of different groups of ACT women. The report presents ACT women’s views on the quality and reliability of different sources of health and wellbeing information and documents the ways in which (different groups of) ACT women prefer to access health and wellbeing information; the barriers they face in accessing and obtaining the information they need; and the gaps in current health and wellbeing information. The report findings demonstrate that barriers to accessing health services and information—including for preventive health—are part of the social determinants of women's lives that can lead to health inequalities. These barriers include:

• The high cost of health care for some women
• Lack of awareness of existing services
• Shortages of general practitioners, specialist medical services, and a spectrum of health services
• Lack of female doctors, especially for reproductive and sexual health
• Lack of culturally appropriate and gender sensitive services and information
• Health and wellbeing services which may not deal holistically with the physical, social and emotional wellbeing and cultural needs of women, especially disadvantaged groups

The report also identified a need for tools and support for Internet literacy for ACT women—enabling women to navigate the Internet better is essential for better access to appropriate health services—by enabling women to access trusted information they will be able to make more rational and informed health decisions without needing to access GPs every time.

One of the major recommendations from the report was for WCHM to develop its website—working in partnership with other key stakeholders and women—to provide assistance to ACT women as health consumers in navigating and assessing information obtained from the internet, particularly through:

• The provision of tools to support ACT women to understand how to assess and identify trusted health and wellbeing information sites
• The development and trial of a central approach to health and wellbeing information for ACT women with a focus on the current gaps identified (having a baby in Canberra, sexual health and menopause for older women, and body image and eating disorders)

This recommendation is being completed through the creation of an online Women’s Health and Wellbeing Hub (above).

The report is available from the Reports and Publications section of this website.

It goes with the Territory! Companion Reports

The data gathered through the survey, focus groups, follow-up survey and literature review was so rich that WCHM complemented It goes with the Territory! with six companion reports highlighting the needs and preferences of six particular groups of women in the ACT: young women; older women; Aboriginal women; mental health carers; women from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) backgrounds; and women with disabilities.

The companion reports are available from the General Publications area of this website.

Website Review Criteria

Following on from the recommendations of It goes with Territory! WCHM created a website review criteria to be used internally when selecting websites to link to. The website review criteria will enable us to expand WCHM’s website by enhancing the current list of trustworthy links, consequently giving women greater access to recognisably reliable health sites.

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