The health of women and girls determines the health and well-being of our modern world: A white paper from the International Council on Women's Health Issues.

The International Council on Women's Health Issues (ICOWHI) is an international nonprofit association dedicated to the goal of promoting health, health care, and well-being of women and girls throughout the world through participation, empowerment, advocacy, education, and research. We are a multidisciplinary network of women's health providers, planners, and advocates from all over the globe. We constitute an international professional and lay network of those committed to improving women and girl's health and quality of life. This document provides a description of our organization mission, vision, and commitment to improving the health and well-being of women and girls globally.

Waiting for the right time: how and why young Thai women manage to avoid heterosexual intercourse.

Nineteen young Thai women were purposively selected from networks of nongovernmental organizations involving children and youths in Bangkok. Our grounded theory findings indicated that these young women used the basic social process they called "waiting for the right time" in order to maintain heterosexual abstinence. Waiting for the right time involved one overarching condition, honoring parental love, and included three overlapping properties: learning rules, planning life path, and ways of preserving virginity. The findings provide information that may lead to the development of culturally competent interventions for middle-class Thai youths to remain healthy and avoid pregnancy.

Tactful monitoring: how thai caregivers manage their relative with schizophrenia at home.

Approximately 343,680 individuals in Thailand suffering from schizophrenia are cared for at home by relatives, most of whom have a little knowledge of the disease; therefore they're left to develop their own strategies of care. Data were collected by in-depth interviews and observation involving 17 caregivers of relatives diagnosed with schizophrenia. Data were analyzed using the constant-comparative method of grounded theory. Caregivers' chief concern was avoiding psychotic episodes. They do this through a process we call "tactful monitoring," which includes the co-variables "unobtrusive observation" and strategies for calming. Caregivers follow a trajectory that leads them to a state of exhaustion, tired and sad, and fearful about the future care of their loved one. Findings from this study led the authors to conclude that in Thailand, caregivers were able to develop creative ways of tending to their relatives with schizophrenia at home, but not without significant cost to themselves. Limited provision for caregiver education and respite exists. If education and increased respite care were instituted, caregivers could benefit, and patients might avoid expensive inpatient visits.

Changing women: mothers and their adolescent daughters.

Budding fecundity in the female child is a matter of family concern. The authors used the grounded theory method to explore the process of communication between mothers and their adolescent daughters concerning sexuality issues within the context of the age changes of both. A core category of changing women was identified along with three maternal and three daughter processes. Changes that occur during this time period can lead to lasting separation between the pair if they fail to develop insight as a way of protecting themselves and one another. The findings may assist health professionals to understand these changes and facilitate the process of communication in these dyads.

Demands out of context: Tanzanian women combining exclusive breastfeeding with employment.

This research, conducted in Tanzania, involved 6 women and their experiences as they combined exclusive breastfeeding with work outside their home. Additional data were collected at a conference in Tanzania and from women in North America. We found that while public health officials did a spectacular job of convincing the women of the advantages of exclusive breastfeeding in terms of their babies' health and their own, they then left the women to their own devises when it came to solving the practical problems of breastfeeding at the same time as holding down a full-time job. We found that the women had to deal with conditions such as no on-site child care, lack of expressing or breastfeeding rooms, and short maternity leave at most workplaces. In addition, the women suffered the embarrassment of dribbling breasts while working. It seems clear that while cultural norms persist, these women are victims who are taught the imperative of breastfeeding without being given societal and governmental support. Therefore, the obvious next step for health professionals is to work for sociopolitical action that will provide a context where breastfeeding can take its natural place in the growth and development of infants. While structural functionalists might insist that structures in place position breastfeeding as having no normal function in the workplace, the pressure of the World Health Organization, by the shear weight of its international influence, may force a change in structure of the workplace.

Founding and processes of the International Council on Women's Health Issues: attentive partnering. The first 19 years.

I present a theoretical analysis and global influence of the first 19 years of the International Council on Women's Health Issues (ICOWHI). To do so, I analyzed observational, documented, and casual data using the constant comparative method of classical grounded theory. All data bits were analyzed with one another, coded, categorized, and reexamined until I discovered a central category that seemed to explain most of the social scene under study. The explanatory power of the central category, attentive partnering, is presented in terms of its applicability to the interactive relationship between participants working for a common goal, and within the cultural, temporal, social, and social structural context of the relationships. Partnering can occur wherever individuals with a common purpose assemble. The conditions under which the interactive process of attentive partnering occurs seem to be the presence of determined, persuasive leaders, who foster growth-enhancing collegial relationships. When this social system is in place, a small volunteer organization can have a global impact.

Out of sync: a generation of first-time mothers over 30.

Increasing numbers of women have delayed childbearing until after they reach their thirties. The researchers who studied early maternal role attainment in women over 30 failed to reflect on the challenges of raising a child to adulthood. The use of grounded theory helped us understand the extended mothering experience from the perspective of women over 30. Fifty-three women from Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, California, Connecticut, and Florida composed the total sample. Ages of the women ranged from 30 to 91; ages of the children ranged from 6 weeks to late sixties. We called the dominant category out of sync, with properties that included mortality, vitality, and social structural considerations. The pervasive quality of the central variable makes this account of interest to an international audience.