Gender, Health and Development in the Americas: Basic Indicators 2005

Through this publication, PAHO, UNFPA and UNIFEM seek to provide government, civil society, academia, and other cooperation agencies with a set of basic statistical indicators that illustrate the differences between women and men in terms of health status and its socioeconomic determinants.

This brochure includes a group of indicators that refer to conditions that exclusively or differentially affect women and men and are available in most countries.  Also included are some internationally defined indicators for monitoring attainment of the MDGs, disaggregated by sex.  There are included also some indicators of priority gender and health issues for which informations is available in only a limited number of countries.

The indicators selected for this publication correspond to the lines of action agreed on by Member States in the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo (1994); the Fourth World Conference on Women Beijing (1995); and the Millennium Declaration (2000) regarding the pursuir for gender equality.  It is important to note that gender equality and women's empowerment are one of the eight Millenium Development Goals (MDGs); moreover, this goal has been widely recognized as a prerequisite for attaining the other MDGs.

It is hoped that the evidence of gender inequality presented in this publication will facilitate an understanding of such disparities, the identification of information gaps, the formulation of initiatives aimed at eliminating inequities, and the creation of conditions that guarantee all people the exercise of their right to health.