Document Type : Original Article
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Abstract
Introduction: In the recent years, women’s health has been proposed as one of the indicators of countries’ development because women are more vulnerable to damage in comparison to men. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of gender inequality on women’s health indicators in 2011.
Methods: The statistical community of this cross-sectional, descriptive - analytical study included all the countries of the world. However, due to the lack of access to all the countries’ data, convenient sampling was used. All the data were related to 2011 and were based on the report by World Health Organization. The data were entered into the SPSS statistical software (version 16) and analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and one-way ANOVA.
Results: The study findings revealed significant negative relationships between gender inequality index and all the indicators of access to health services, including births attended by skilled health personnel (r=-0.73, P<0.0001), contraceptive prevalence (r=-0.66, P<0.0001), antenatal care coverage - at least four visits (r=-0.54, P<0.0001), antenatal care coverage - at least one visit (r=-0.66, P<0.0001), and unmet need for family planning index (r=-0.55, P<0.0001). Besides, the rate of gender inequality was different in the countries with four different income groups (F=82.138, P<0.0001). Also, the rate of gender inequality was higher in low-income countries compared to high-income ones.
Conclusions: Increase in gender inequality was negatively associated with the indicators of access to health services. Therefore, by reducing gender inequality, access to health services can be enhanced thereby leading to prosperity and sustainable development.
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