Different needs at different life stages
Women’s health needs change throughout their lives and it is very important for them to have access to the right information and services at the right time to achieve the best health. Women have many important transition points in their lives. The social, emotional, economic and hormonal changes women experience at these transition points can make them especially vulnerable to health problems.
Having access to the information and services you need at each of these stages can give you better control of your preventative health care and health-management decisions and can help prevent health risk factors from ‘adding up’ throughout your life. Young women can be under pressure to be successful at school and university, to be popular, to conform to stereotypes and to look attractive.
All of this can increase the chance of risky behaviours such as drinking too much alcohol and having unprotected sex, and can lead to an unhealthy body image and eating disorders. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported in 2007 that nearly one in three young women has a mental health disorder.
When women begin to think about having a family, they face a whole new set of health issues. Because these days women are older when they have children, they may not find it as easy to get pregnant as they hoped. Women who are pregnant or who have recently become mothers have a high risk of depression, and balancing parenting and work responsibilities can affect women’s health in many ways.
In midlife women often experience more life events and changes than at any other time. This is a time of physical transition, when menopause may cause a range of physical symptoms, depression and anxiety, as well as an increased risk of other health problems such as osteoporosis and heart disease.
At the same time, adult children may be leaving home and new opportunities for work and leisure may open up. Many women in this life stage, however, take on the role of caring for an elderly parent, which creates another range of emotional and physical challenges.
Women are making up a larger proportion of the old and very old population groups in Australia. Older women have specific health needs that are often influenced by outliving their partners, being less economically secure than men, and having much higher rates of age-related health problems such as dementia, arthritis and osteoporosis than men of the same age. Older women are often invisible in Australian society
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