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"Healthy Women Build Healthy Communities" is the principle that guides the work of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to improve women's health. As an agency in the United States Department of Health and Human Services, HRSA is charged with assuring access to quality health care through a network of community-based health centers, maternal and child health programs, and State, Territorial, and community HIV/AIDS programs. In addition, HRSA's mission includes supporting individuals pursuing health careers in medicine, nursing, and many other disciplines. HRSA fulfills these responsibilities by collecting and analyzing timely and topical information that identifies health priorities and trends that can be addressed through program interventions and capacity building.
HRSA's Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) and the Office of Women's Health are pleased to present Women's Health USA 2002, the first annual report on the health status of America's women. This first edition of the Women's Health USA data book brings together key facts and figures to profile the health of women throughout the nation. The data book was developed by HRSA to provide readers with easy-to-use statistical information. A collection of current and historical data on some of the most pressing health challenges facing women, their families, and their communities is included in this publication. Women's Health USA 2002 is intended to be a concise reference for policymakers and program managers at the Federal, State, and local levels to identify and clarify issues affecting the health of women.
Women's Health USA is modeled after Child Health USA, now in its twelfth edition. This latter statistical summary has become a useful tool for family advocates, policy makers, and organizations to track key indicators of child and adolescent health. With the introduction of Women's Health USA, HRSA begins a new series of publications that promises to deliver current information in a user-friendly format. Together, the two publications should be considered companion documents.
Child Health USA and now Women's Health USA address common themes, including Population Characteristics, Health Status, and Health Services Utilization. The first section, Population Characteristics, presents statistics on factors that influence the well-being of women. The second section, Health Status, contains data on vital statistics, protective and risk factors, morbidity, and reproductive health. The third section, Health Services Utilization, contains data regarding health care financing and access to care.
In these 76 pages, readers will find a profile of women's health captured by a variety of data sources. The data book brings together the latest available information from various agencies within the Federal Government including the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Agriculture, and Justice. Every attempt has been made to use data collected in the past five years. This new resource may inspire users to search for comparable statistics at a State or local level to assess women's health in a particular jurisdiction, to identify trends, or to identify needs in their communities and plan appropriate interventions.
We hope you find Women's Health USA to be a useful resource. Please provide any feed- back on this publication to the HRSA Information Center at 1-888-ASK-HRSA or ask@hrsa.gov so that subsequent editions may better meet your data needs. We also refer you to the HRSA Women's Health website at http://www.hrsa.gov/womenshealth.
Please note that Women's Health USA 2002 is not copyrighted. Readers are free to duplicate and use all or part of the information contained in this publication. The book is available online at http://www.mchb.hrsa.gov/data/women.htm.
Single copies of this publication are available at no cost from the HRSA Information Center P.O. Box 2910 Merrifield, VA 22116, telephone: 703-442-9051 or 1-888- ASK-HRSA.