The Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health is in its 3rd decade of research and knowledge exchange to improve women’s health. We continue to pursue the goal of “closing the loop” between research and practice to bring about social change and health improvement for women. We collaborate with researchers, service providers, policy makers and community-based advocates across Canada and internationally. We lead virtual collaborations through online research networks, virtual communities and web-based collaboratories.
Our work is guided by three approaches that together help build tailored services and personalized health care for all women:
- We encourage and contribute to the building of sex and gender science to improve or redress gaps in understanding women’s health and the many under-researched conditions, issues or diseases that impact female bodies.
- We use sex and gender-based analysis+ (SGBA+) to identify the differential impacts of gendered norms, identities and stereotypes on the health and well-being of women, girls, men, boys and all gender groups.
- We aim for gender transformative solutions that increase gender specific knowledge, undermine gender stereotyping, and reduce gender blindness in health programs and policies.
Click here to learn more about these approaches.
Our knowledge products integrate sex, gender and other factors and involve users at every stage of our work. We produce manuals, handbooks, tools, frameworks, guidance, fact sheets, backgrounders, and training modules. We maintain practice and public websites that contain these products and the evidence behind them. We work with numerous partners and communities on improving our response to a range of health and social issues that affect girls, women and their families and communities.
The CEWH is known internationally for its analyses on a range of health and social issues, and its leadership in understanding how sex and gender affect health. We work across a range of topics but are well known for our research and materials on addiction and substance use (tobacco, opioids, alcohol, methamphetamines and cannabis), trauma informed practice, violence against women, and applying sex and gender principles in developing health policy & health promotion.
CEWH is hosted by BC Women’s Hospital + Health Centre, a part of the Provincial Health Services Authority.