The Healthsharing Book: Resources for Canadian Women

J.M. Daniel was Nursing Administrator, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto.

The Healthsharing Book: Resources for Canadian Women was put together in response to a need identified by women involved in Healthsharing: A Canadian Women’s Health Quarterly. The growing circulation of the magazine revealed to the publisher the need for additional tools to reach more women and to educate them in the area of health needs and resources available across the country. As a result, Kathleen McDonnell and Mariana Valverde, two women who describe themselves as feminists, compiled and edited the material for their very useful book.

The authors state that, by educating more women about health concerns and related issues, they hope not only to provide specific health knowledge but also to encourage new thoughts about health issues for women in Canada. They have indeed met these objectives. They have done a superb job of compiling this information, and they have also made the effort to search out and compile French resources, as well as resources for black women. Although, as the authors state, information in both areas, especially for Canadian-born black women, was either sparse on non-existent, they did explore all the available material in order to provide a comprehensive resource manual for women from a variety of needs and backgrounds. In an effort to stimulate new thoughts and ideas, the editors have headed each section with an article authored either by themselves or by other experts active in women’s health issues.

Each article focuses on key aspects of the subject of that chapter. The articles, which are all well written, cover topics such as safety in the workplace, childbearing, aging, drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders, violence, fitness, and many other timely subjects. After each article is a listing of available resources on the subject matter, listed under the headings of Organizations, Print Resources, and Audiovisual Resources.

The index lists all the resources alphabetically by title.

The Healthsharing Book is an excellent resource guide for women in Canada on a wide variety of health-related subjects. It would be a valuable addition to any home library.