Abstract
Women's health in the developing world should not be limited to measuring morbidity and mortality, but understanding why women may or may not seek care for their health complaints. This article explores what are the health complaints of midlife women and why women choose to seek health care for some complaints, but not for others. The intention here is to better understand what factors might be influencing these women's decisions, and what the health care system can do to address their needs. The percentage of women in this community seeking health care for their perceived health complaints was found to be highly variable, ranging from 100 percent of the women with cancer seeking care to 6 percent of the women with signs of urinary incontinence doing the same. The authors suggest why women treat some conditions and not others is dependent upon women's perception of health, illness and a host of sociocultural and environmental factors.
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