Strategic Action Plan for the Health of Women in Europe

The Strategic Action Plan for the Health of Women in Europe aims to assist national and local governments in their efforts to achieve greater gender equity in health and health care and thus to contribute to improving the status of women in society. The Action Plan is intended to ensure that women’s health issues are explicit in any strategies to address inequities in health across the WHO European Region.

The Action Plan was endorsed by experts from 34 countries in 2001. This publication includes this endorsement, the Action Plan itself – highlighting the action needed from countries and the role of the WHO Regional Office for Europe – and annexes that consider the European targets for health for all from the perspective of women and provide the context for the Plan by summarizing relevant United Nations policy agreements. The Action Plan can help in countries’ work to improve the health of all their people by pointing out ways to meet the need for both gender-specific and gender-sensitive programmes of disease prevention and treatment.