Welcome to Umeå Centre of Gender Studies, Medicine (UCGM). We offer a meeting place within the Faculty of Medicine for researchers from all departments interested in gender related studies in the areas of health, health care and medicine.
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Welcome to a seminar with Professor Annika Härenstam from University of Gothenburg:
(The seminar is held in Swedish)
Date: January 31st 3.00 - 4.30 pm
Location: Insikten at Norrlands universitetssjukhus, building 9a (Family Medicine)
February 1st at 9.00 am.
Room: 135 at NUS, building 9a (Family Medicine)
Gender equality and health experiences: Workplace patterns in Northern Sweden. (The dissertation is held in Swedish)
Sofia Elwér, Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine
Opponent: Prof. Annika Härenstam, University of Gothenburg
Supervisors: Anne Hammarström and Lena Aléx
Welcome to a workshop with professor Susan Phillips from Queens University, Canada. Professor Phillips is also a guest professor at Umeå University.
Date: May 9th 1.15-3.00 pm
Location: Room 229 at Norrlands universitetssjukhus (follow signs from the corridor leading to the Medical Library)
Workshop with professor Susan Phillips
Susan Phillips will first make an introduction to the field for about 30 minutes. This discussion will be about how to account for and measure gender in quantitative research. I will review, briefly, some existing or possible measures of sex roles and gender equality. Then, using examples from the literature, we will discuss misinterpretation of variables related to gender. Finally we will look at the meanings of independence and dependence (in epidemiology) through a gender lens.
Background paper: Phillips SP. Including gender in public health research. Public Health Rep. 2011 Sep-Oct;126 Suppl 3:16-21.
Biography
Susan Phillips is a Professor in the School of Medicine, Queen’s University, in Kingston, Canada. As a family doctor in the remote north, downtown Toronto, and Kingston’s poor north end Dr. Phillips has seen how social circumstances shape health. Her research on gender has been published in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Social Science and Medicine, JAMA and the International Journal for Equity in Health, and has led to invitations from the World Health Organization, Swedish Research Council, governments of Bosnia and Serbia, and Australian, Dutch, Swedish and Canadian universities to speak and to facilitate their integration of gender into medical education, practice and research.
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Welcome to Mona Backhan’s seminar on:
Thursday March 1st at 13.15-15.00
Room: Insikten, building 9A.
Mona Backhans: Gender Policy and Gender Equality in a Public Health Perspective. Investigating morbidity
and mortality in Sweden and 22 OECD countries.
The aim of this thesis is to investigate gender policy and gender equality as determinants of health. Data at individual, municipal and country level were employed, and the settings were Sweden and 22 OECD countries. The studies span the time period 1973-2008. In Study I, gender equality at municipal level (N=289) was measured using indicators of political participation, division of labour in the private and public spheres, and the distribution of economic resources. The outcomes were life expectancy and number of days of compensation for sickness absence and disability. The data were cross-sectional (2000-2004) and linear regression was used. Gender equality was correlated with lower life expectancy and higher levels of sickness and disability for both men and women. In Study II, a cohort of parents (N of approx. 75,000) were followed from 1980 to 1999. The aim was to assess possible interaction between gender equality at couple (between partners) and local level. For this purpose, a combinatorial index was constructed. The outcome was number of days compensated from sickness insurance during 1986-1999, with a cut-off point at the 85 % percentile. Logistic regression was used. Among fathers, those who were traditionally unequal with their partner and lived in an equal municipality had higher levels of sick-leave. Mothers who earned less and/or had a lower occupational position than their partner had lower levels of sick-leave, especially when they lived in a traditional municipality. Study III aimed to classify 22 OECD countries into homogenous clusters, using hierarchical cluster analysis for 1979, 1989, 1999 and 2004. Included were indicators of taxes, parental leave, pensions, social insurances and social services in kind to reflect Sainsbury’s three gender policy regimes. The empirical classification did not completely correspond to Sainsbury’s theoretical typology. Rather than an emerging separate gender roles regime, there was a compensatory breadwinner cluster, distinguished by compensatory measures in the pension system directed at carers and extended childcare leave following maternity leave. A male breadwinner cluster was found, with the core feature of having a tax system that supports single (as opposed to dual) earner families. From 1989 there was an earner-carer cluster, characterised by generous parental leave, high social services expenditure, and universal basic pensions. In Study IV, the cluster solution for 2004 and specific policy indicators for 1973-2008 were used as predictors, and the outcomes were mortality from external causes and circulatory disease. For this repeated measures model, hierarchical linear regression was used. Both the earner-carer cluster and specific policies, i.e. generous parental leave, high social services expenditure and universal basic pensions, were associated with a smaller gender gap in external cause mortality, primarily due to increased female mortality. For circulatory disease mortality, both the earner-carer and the compensatory breadwinner cluster experienced a larger decrease in male mortality over time. In conclusion, the relationship between gender equality and health differed according to the unit of analysis and the outcome studied, and also varied between men and women. Based on these results, hypotheses for future studies are formulated.
I. Backhans MC, Lundberg M, Månsdotter A. Does increased gender equality lead to a convergence of health outcomes for men and women? A study of Swedish municipalities. Social Science & Medicine. 2007. 64(9):1892-1903.
II. Backhans MC, Burström B, Lindholm L, Månsdotter A. Pioneers and laggards - is the effect of gender equality on health dependent on context? Social Science & Medicine. 2009. 68(8):1388-1395.
III. Backhans MC, Burström B, Marklund S. Gender policy developments and policy regimes in 22 OECD countries, 1979-2008. International Journal of Health Services. 2011. 41(4):595-623.
IV. Backhans MC, Burström B, Ponce de Leon A, Marklund S. Is gender policy related to the gender gap in cause-specific mortality? A study of 22 OECD countries 1973-2008. (Manuscript).
Aim: The aim of the conference is to develop gender theories within public health research. The following three central concepts/theories will be discussed, developed and operationalised.
• Gender constructions
• Gender order
• Embodiment
Deadline for application: 22 December. Please observe that the number of participants is limited. Send your registration and abstract to genderinpublichealth@genus.gu.se.
Professor Schofield is an internationally highly regarded researcher in the fields of gender, health and policy. She is based in the Faculty of Health Sciences at The University of Sydney and specialises in sociology, public policy and health. Her major research areas include: childbirth and maternity services, men's health, women's mental and emotional health, gender equity in public institutions, gender equity and health policy, prosecution and deterrence in workplace health, and alcohol use and harm minimisation among young people. Together with Professor Raewyn Connell, she has develop further the "gender regimes" model in understanding gender dynamics in health as well as in public institutions, particularly in relation to policy making.
Selected publications
Schofield, T. (2011) Gender, Health, Research, and Public Policy. In Oliffe, J. and Greaves, L. (eds) Designing and Conducting Gender, Sex and Health Research, Sage, London, Chapter 12.
Schofield, T. (2010) Men's health and wellbeing. In Kuhlmann, E. and Annandale, E. (eds) The Handbook of Gender and Healthcare, Palgrave Macmillan, Houndmills, Basingstoke, pp. 239-55.
Schofield, T. (2009) Gendered organisational dynamics: The elephant in the room for Australian allied health workforce policy and planning?, Journal of Sociology, 45, 4, 1-18.
Schofield, T. (2008) Gender and health inequalities: what are they and what can we do about them?, Australian Journal of Social Issues, 43, 1, 139-157.
Schofield, T. (2007) Men's health and illness. In Flood, M., Kegan-Gardiner, J., Pease, B. and Pringle,K. (eds) Routledge International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities, Routledge, London.
Schofield, T. and Goodwin, S. (2005) Gender politics and public policy making: prospects for advancing gender equality, Reinventing Gender Equality and the Political: Policy and Society, 25, 4, 25-44.
Schofield, T. (2004) Boutique Health?: Gender and Equity in Health Policy, Australian Health Policy Institute, The University of Sydney, Commissioned Paper Series 2004/08, 80pp.
Schofield, T., Connell, R. W., Walker, L., Wood, J. and Butland, D. (2000) Understanding men's health and illness: a gender-relations approach to policy, research and practice, Journal of American College Health, 48, 247 - 256.
October 12 at 3 pm there will be a lecture about ’Burn-out among GPs’,
more information will come.
Thursday May 12 at 1.00 -4.00 pm
Room: Sal D 9 tr, NUS
Anne Hammarström
”Looking forward and backward - 30 years of gender research in medicine."
Wednesday April 6 in room 135, building 9A
15:00 – 16:00 Lecture
16:00 Drinks
Constructions of health and gender – tensions between a factorised and a situated health
Britta Pelters
March 23 at 1.00-2.30 pm in Insikten, Allmänmedicin (building 9a).
A social constructivist health concept will be presented, inspired by the stand point theory and Judith Butler’s theory about performativity.
Britta Pelters defends her thesis in public health at the University of Bielefeld, Germany during Spring 2011.
Looking forward and backwards – 30 years of gender research in medicine
Anne Hammarström
April 6 at 3.00-4.00 pm in Betula (by. 6m),
followed by soft drinks and mingle.
Gender research has been chosen as an "Area of Excellence”
Umeå University has prioritised fourteen research environments, which we refer to as "Areas of Excellence", which after thourough national and international assessment, have proven to be the university's strongest.
More information
Open seminar with professor Gunnel Hensing
Alcohol from gender symbolsim to addiction. Research about alcohol consumption and alcohol problems from a gender theoretical perspective.
Tuesday September 28 September at 1.00 -2.30 pm
Room: Insikten, building 9a
(The main entrance is closed, enter on the opposite side of the building)
Open seminar with Denise Malmberg
Bodynormativity – Reading Representations of Disabled Bodies
Friday September 10 at 1.00 pm – 2.30 pm
Room: Aulan Vårdvetarhuset
Suggested reading: Denise Malmberg: ”Bodynormativity – Reading Representations of Disabled Bodies” in J Bromseth, L Folkmarson Käll, K Mattsson red. (2009) Body Claims Centre for Gender Research, Uppsala University.
Seminar
March 12 at 10.00-11.00. Room: Insikten, building 9a
Gender and help-seeking: is reluctance to consult solely a feature of 'masculinity'?
Professor Kate Hunt.
Kate Hunt is Honorary Professor in the Division of Community Based Sciences at the University of Glasgow. She is also head of the Gender and Health programme at MRC Social & Public Health Sciences Unit, Glasgow. She has published extensively within the field of gender and health; social inequalities in health; health, illness and disability in late mid-life and early old age; media and health; and public understandings of various dimensions of health and disease.
Dissertations
March 12 at 1 pm. Room: Sal D, 9 stairs, NUS
Social inequity in health. Explanations from a life course and gender
Perspective
Masuma Novak, Dept Public Health and Clinical Medicine
Opponent: Prof. Kate Hunt, Medical Research Council, Glasgow
Thesis
February 12 at 9.00 am. Room; Betula, building 6M, NUS.
Struck by lighting or slowly suffocating - gendered expressions of depression in a primary health care context
Ulla Danielsson, Dept Public Health and Clinical Medicine
Thesis
Kajsa Gilenstam Gender and Physiology in Ice Hockey -A multidimensional study
January 8th at 9.00 am, Building 6M, room Betula
Thesis
Seminar
Doing masculinity, not doing health. A qualitative study among Dutch male employees about male ideologies, health beliefs and company exercise.
Friday January 15 at 1.00 -2.30 pm
Room Insikten, building 9A (Allmänmedicin).
PhD Petra Verdonk, Social Medicine, University of Maastricht is a guest researcher at our research programme Challenging Health during January 2010. She is a psychologist and gender researcher, focusing on work related health
Michael Kimmel visited UCGS and gave the lecture Men and health: what young men say and don´t say about their lives as guys
October 22 3.15 pm in room Betula.
Dissertation
Arja Lehti. Struggling for clarity – cultural context, gender and a concept of depression in general practice.
October 23 at 1.00 pm
Thesis
Lecture on the Annual Celebration of Umeå University
Anne Hammarström was awarded the gender prize by Görel Bohlin. She will give the lecture: "The importance of gender research in medicine"
October 24 at 12.10-12.35
Dissertation
Ieva Reine: From young to adult: health consequences of unemployment from a gender perspective
November 2 at 9.00 am
Thesis
Umeå Center of Gender Studies, Medicine (UCGM)
Umeå University, Faculty of Medicine
901 87 Umeå
Tel:
+ 46 (0)90-785 68 16
