Women’s Health Information Packages

Development Process

	Providing quality health information to women
	How is quality identified?
	How are health information packages used?
	Women's health information packages topics

Providing quality health information to women

Women's Health Victoria (WHV) operates an English language Clearinghouse of women's health information. WHV is aware of the high demand by women for quality information which is factual, current and answers their specific questions. By operating a Clearinghouse WHV is aware of either the plethora or dearth of quality health information available, depending on the information topic. The difficulty both women and service providers have in accessing information, sifting through it and determining what constitutes quality health information is also highly evident. In response to this, WHV has developed Women's Health Information Packages. Each package resource is devoted to a particular health issue (topics are listed below).

How is quality identified?

All currently held resources on a particular topic are reviewed by the Health Information and Education Officer, recognising consumer and service provider participation in health information seeking. Resources are assessed for quality and inclusion based on the following:

• The language and complexity of ideas is readily understood by target audience.
• Information has cultural relevance for consumers.
• Information recognises diversity within women's health information needs.
• Medical, social [1], feminist [2], complementary therapy and life-style approaches are considered.
• Information is up-to-date (generally, no older than five years).
• Information covers a depth and breadth of issues, appropriate to consumer and service provider identified need.[3]
• Information is not prescriptive.

Inclusion of resources from a variety of levels of complexity of ideas and language is desirable to meet the range of need and understanding for different women.

Quality assurance and objectivity is further enhanced by the input of other staff members on the WHV Information Packages Group. The group meets to prompt and question the initial reviewer to explicitly describe why a specific resource is identified as quality. Discussion may follow about a specific resource and at times the group members will read a resource to help decide on its inclusion or not. This means the Health Information and Education Officer has to articulate why a resource is ‘quality' (and not just pick personal favourites) and provides the group with a succinct description of each resource.

Each Women's Health Information Package is reviewed every 1 – 2 years, to ensure currency and relevance of resources. New resources to the WHV Clearinghouse on the topic are also reviewed to see if they need to be included in the Women's Health Information Packages.

How are independent women’s health
information packages used?

Each Women's Health Information Package is intended to act as a guide to show which resources best meet identified information needs. It can be used in a variety of ways by a number of different users.

• For service providers, each Women's Health Information Package offers an annotated bibliography of quality assessed resources that can support their health information provision to women. GPs, for example, may have many women who have questions about menopause. The menopause Women's Health Information Package indicates which resources would best answer those questions. Service providers are also able to provide copies of the Women's Health Information Packages to their clients. Service providers are able to photocopy the Women's Health Information Packages for distribution or download them from the WHV web site.
• For individual women, the Women's Health Information Package assists their search for information by indicating which electronic resources can be accessed via the on-line WHV Clearinghouse Resource Collection database or in their local library.
• Libraries use the Women's Health Information Packages as a guide to purchasing new resources. Public libraries are a common source of information for many women and each information package highlights resources which would be of most use to women users.

Women's health information packages are available on:

	Abortion		Contraception
	Anxiety		Endometriosis
	Body image		Hysterectomy
	Breast screening		Menopause
	Cervical screening		Polycystic ovary syndrome
	Complementary therapies		Violence against women: intimate partner violence

[1] The social model of health aims to take social, economic and environmental factors into account both in the analysis of the determinants of health and in health promotion activities

[2] A feminist framework recognises women's health needs being located in hierarchical political and social structures that reinforce discrimination and oppression through laws, educational and social systems. The consistent request from women to take control of their own health, the need for accurate information to empower women in making decisions about their own health, the need for information that is appropriate to women's lifestage and individual needs are what drive a feminist understanding of women's health information needs.

[3] As already noted, it is this last dot point that is critical in determining what information is relevant for inclusion. There is a lot of information available that meets many of the criteria and which is very good information. It does not necessarily meet the health information needs of women, however, and therefore is not considered for inclusion.

Go to specific health issues introductory page.