The shortage of maternity care providers in Canada has been documented largely from the perspective of physicians. Women in rural communities, however, have much to contribute to this discussion. Exploratory research in 3 rural communities in south central Ontario eliciting the perspectives of 36 birthing women has affirmed the need for integrated models of maternity care. Rural women seek care...

Globally, severe anemia impacts millions of non-pregnant women. However, studies on the prevalence of severe anemia through large epidemiologic surveys among non-pregnant women have been scarce in China. In this study, we aimed to study the prevalence of severe anemia and its determinants among non-pregnant women living in rural areas of China. Data were gathered for 712,101 non-pregnant women ...

OBJECTIVE This study examined whether the association between socio-economic status (SES) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in black South Africans from the North West Province had shifted from the more affluent groups with higher SES to the less affluent, lower SES groups over a period of nine years. METHOD Cross-sectional baseline data of 2 010 urban and rural subjects (35 years...

Hypertension is an important public health problem and the major causes of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality among aged and elderly population in India. The present study is an attempt to assess age related trends of blood pressure and prevalence of hypertension in rural and urban women as well as correlation of blood pressure with obesity indicators (WC, BMI, and WHR). Data for present cr...

This paper presents the Personal Health Information system (PHI), which has been designed to influence health behaviours of rural women. The objective of the PHI is to offer health information to rural women to increase their awareness about menses and maternal health. The design and development process of the PHI is based on the theory of planned behaviour and employs social cues of persuasive...

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to assess rural-urban differences in mammography and Papanicolaou (Pap) smear screening. METHODS Data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (1994-2000, 2002, 2004) were used to examine trends in these two tests by rural-urban residence location. RESULTS In 2004, 70.8 percent of rural and 75.7 percent of urban respondents had received t...

INTRODUCTION National guidelines advocate biennial mammography screening for asymptomatic women aged 50-69 years. Unfortunately many women do not abide by such recommendations, and evidence indicates that compliance rates are lower in rural areas. METHODS We estimated logistic regression models using data from the Canadian Community Health Survey for 2002/03 and 2004/05. We identified the ext...

OBJECTIVE To examine the episiotomy rate for women delivering in a regional hospital versus the rate in rural hospitals. DESIGN Retrospective review of low-risk delivery charts for a 12-month period (2006 to 2007). SETTING One regional and 3 rural hospitals in southern Alberta. PARTICIPANTS Charts were reviewed for a random sample of 10% of the women with low-risk deliveries at the region...

INTRODUCTION Evidence has accumulated that exposure to ambient air pollution during pregnancy may influence preterm birth (PTB) in urban settings. Conversely, this relation has barely been investigated in rural areas where individual characteristics (demographic, socioeconomic, and psychosocial factors) and environmental co-exposures may differ. OBJECTIVE We examined the association between p...

Introduction: The aim of this study was to investigate weight gain during pregnancy and birth weight in rural regions of Tabriz, a province in the northwest of Iran. Materials & Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted using routinely collected data of pregnant mothers from rural health centers. Eight health centers were randomly selected in rural areas of Tabriz. Totally, 874 women aged...