COSWL Cause

"The entire society needs to be speaking out against this," Clinton said. "It should be a mark of shame that this happens anywhere in any country."

Kinshasa
11 August 2009

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton travels to Congo's eastern Kivu region, Tuesday, to meet with victims of sexual violence.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says continuing sexual and gender-based violence in Kivu is "truly one of mankind's greatest atrocities."

The United Nations estimates that there have been at least 200,000 cases of sexual violence in Eastern Congo since 1996.

The U.N. Refugee Agency says only by raising awareness, sensitizing communities and bringing an end to impunity will the girls and women of Eastern Congo feel safe again.

See work by Lynn Westbrook.

Women are especially vulnerable regarding health care costs and coverage related to insurance as is reported in a number of reports. Perhaps this is why it has not received the attention it should get? See below the many ways women (and librarians?) are affected by this issue.

As the majority of librarians are women, this is a very important issue indeed for our membership. How well do libraries provide for insurance coverage? How affected are women librarians by inadequate or no health insurance? How does this compare to women as reported in studies below? How flexible are libraries in their health care policies? What solutions can ALA endorse and support for its members?

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Roadblocks to Health Care: Why the Current Health Care System DOES NOT Work for WOMEN -- http://www.healthreform.gov/reports/women/index.html
From Health Reform.gov

The current health insurance framework leaves too many women uncovered.

Twenty-one million women and girls went without health insurance in 2007, and another 14 million relied on coverage through the individual insurance market.3
Women are less likely to be employed full-time than men (52% versus 73%), making them less likely to be eligible for employer-based health benefits themselves. In fact, less than half of women have the option of obtaining employer-based coverage on their own.4

Even when they work for an employee that offers coverage, one in six is not eligible to take it, often because they are part-time workers. They end up either covered through a spouse (41%), purchasing insurance directly through the individual market (5%), on public programs (10%), or uninsured (38%).5

And even among women with the option to get health coverage through their employer, they are twice as likely as men to go on their spouse’s plan (15% versus 7%).6

This dynamic has several effects. Single women are twice as likely to be uninsured than married women (24% versus 12%).7

Married women in the 55 to 64 age group are particularly vulnerable to a discontinuity of coverage as their spouses go on Medicare. Among this age group, there is a drop in dependent employer-sponsored coverage from 39% to 34%.8

When employer-based coverage is not an option, some women turn to the individual insurance market. In the 55 to 64 age group, the decline in employer-based coverage is coupled with a rise in the purchase of individual insurance from 5% to 8%. This trend is not seen with

Women and Health Coverage: The Affordability Gap -- http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/NWLCCommonwealthHealthInsuranceIssueBrief2007.pdf
Elizabeth M. Patchias and Judy Waxman
National Women’s Law Center

ABSTRACT: Although men and women have some similar challenges with
regard to health insurance,women face unique barriers to becoming insured. More significantly, women have greater difficulty affording health care services even once they are insured. On average, women have lower incomes than men and therefore have greater difficulty paying premiums.Women also are less likely than men to have coverage through their own employer and more likely to obtain coverage through their spouses; are more likely than men to have higher out-of-pocket health care expenses; and use more health care services than men and consequently are in greater need of comprehensive coverage. Proposals for improving health policy need to address these disparities.

National Report Card on Women’s Health: Women and Health Insurance -- http://hrc.nwlc.org/Spotlight/Women-and-Health-Insurance.aspx
From the National Women’s Law Center and Oregon Health & Science University

Many U.S. Women Short on Health Insurance -- http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/05/11/Many-US-women-short-on-health-insurance/UPI-24901242014460/

WASHINGTON, May 10 [2009] (UPI) -- The overwhelming majority of U.S. women are either uninsured or underinsured for health costs and have medical debt problems, a report says.

The study, "Women at Risk: Why Many Women Are Forgoing Needed Health Care," also says 52 percent of working-age women say they have problems accessing needed healthcare because of cost, compared to 39 percent of men who said so.
The study "Women at Risk: Why Many Women Are Forgoing Needed Health Care," based on data from Commonwealth Fund's 2007 Biennial Health Insurance Survey.

Reference -- S. D. Rustgi, M. M. Doty, and S. R. Collins, Women at Risk: Why Many Women Are Foregoing Needed Health Care, The Commonwealth Fund, May 2009.

Kaiser Family Foundation Study: Women and Health Care: A National Profile -- http://www.kff.org/womenshealth/whp070705pkg.cfm

A new national survey of women on their health finds that a substantial percentage of women cannot afford to go to the doctor or get prescriptions filled. Although a majority of women are in good health and satisfied with their health care, many have health problems and do not get adequate levels of preventive care. The report also examines women’s health status, health care costs, insurance, access to care, prevention, and their role in family health care.

Rachel Walden, best known for demanding answers and action in the POPLINE abortion controversy is a 2009 Library Journal" Mover and Shaker." In spring 2008, POPLINE, the major database on global reproductive health, limited researchers' ability to search on “abortion” by making it a stopword. Its rationale: USAID funding put it under the global “gag rule” restricting discussion of abortion. “As a librarian,” says Walden, “I was angry that access to information was being quietly restricted based on a political agenda.”

Walden spread the word on her Women's Health News blog, providing clear explanations and contacting reproductive rights and feminist activists. “This was not just an issue for librarians,” recalls Walden, but “for everybody who cares about reproductive rights and the effects of the global gag rule.”

The POPLINE controversy sums up Walden's ongoing mission “to connect people with health-related information.” For Walden, librarianship and blogging boil down to one thing: “here's some information, let me share it with you.” Blogging offers “the added layer of my own commentary.” Her background as a medical librarian lets her use the skills that support evidence-based medicine to evaluate medical news and statistics, helping readers to “sift through the media and talk around women's health, particularly politically charged issues.”

Walden considers “evangelizing about librarians” part of her blogging. Readers sometimes email asking for resources, and, during the POPLINE discussions, “I had a couple remark, 'Don't mess with the librarians,'” she notes. It's “just a normal thing—I'm a librarian, I do this blog, I can find information on things.” And now she's blogging on Our Bodies, Our Blog (www.ourbodiesourblog.org) and writing occasionally for Women's Health Activist, the newsletter of the National Women's Health Network.

North Carolina State's Kay Yow, the Hall of Fame women's basketball coach who won more than 700 games while earning fans with her decades-long fight against breast cancer, died on Saturday. She was 66.

Yow, first diagnosed with the disease in 1987, died Saturday morning at WakeMed Cary Hospital after being admitted there last week, university spokeswoman Annabelle Myers said.

Yow won more than 700 games in a career filled with milestones. She coached the U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal in 1988, won four Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championships, earned 20 NCAA tournament bids and reached the Final Four in 1998.

She also was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2002, while the school dedicated "Kay Yow Court" in Reynolds Coliseum in 2007.

But for many fans, Yow was best defined by her unwavering resolve while fighting cancer, from raising awareness and money for research to staying with her team through the debilitating effects of the disease and chemotherapy treatments. In her final months, Yow was on hormonal therapy as the cancer spread to her liver and bone.