Women and their health in the middle years: A Manitoba project

Abstract

‘Women and their Health in the Middle Years’ (NHRDP project 6607-1240-42) is examining issues relating to the health and health behaviour of women in the 4G59 age group. Whether seen from the perspective of physicians with patients in middle age or from the perspective of feminist health consumer groups [ 11 the image of women at this stage in the life cycle is a negative one. Information on women’s health behaviour in middle age comes largely from community surveys in which they have been compared with women in other age groups in terms of their patterns of morbidity and levels of health care utilization. Midlife women have emerged as high users of medical services [2-4] and of various forms of medication, particularly the psychotropic drugs [5-71. They are more likely to have been treated for psychological problems and their symptoms to have been diagnosed as neurotic or psychosomatic in origin [8]. In the medical literature [1], explanations of this pattern of health behaviour focus on midlife as a phase in the life cycle marked by hormonal change (culminating in menopause) and by changes in the familial environment of a woman as her parents age and her children grow into adulthood. Other characteristics of women in this age group are less often discussed: e.g. that many work and, therefore, their physical and psychological health is subject to the balance between the demands of family life and the demands of labour force participation [9]. Changes in support and network characteristics also have relevance to health. Middle age is a life stage in which some women expand their social network as their family responsibilities decrease, while other women maintain a home centred but contracting network as family members move out of the domestic core. Finally. a woman’s support system may be threatened in midlife by divorce, illness or death of a partner. In sum. midlife women operate in a context marked by change in their socio-psychological environments and under conditions in which their network and support systems are themselves subject to fluctuation.