title: The Women's Health Care Empowerment Model as a Catalyst for Change in Developing Countries.
abstract: Women's empowerment has been attempted through a number of different fields including the realms of politics, finance, and education, yet none of these domains are as promising as health care. Here we review preliminary work in this domain and introduce a model for women's empowerment through involvement in health care, titled the "women's health care empowerment model." Principles upon which our model is built include: acknowledging the appropriate definition of empowerment within the cultural context, creating a women's network for communication, integrating local culture and tradition into training women, and increasing the capability of women to care for their children and other women.
authors.affiliation: a Department of the History of Science , Harvard College , Cambridge , Massachusetts , USA.
authors.forename: Lavinia R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Mitroi
authors.affiliation: b Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics , Loma Linda University School of Public Health, Loma Linda University , Loma Linda , California , USA.
authors.forename: Medina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sahak
authors.affiliation: c Department of Neurology , Loma Linda University Medical Center, Loma Linda University , Loma Linda , California , USA.
authors.forename: Ayesha Z
authors.initials: AZ
authors.lastname: Sherzai
authors.affiliation: d Department of Medicine and Basic Science , Loma Linda University School of Medicine, Loma Linda University , Loma Linda , California , USA.
authors.forename: Dean
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sherzai
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003142:Communication; D003150:Community Health Workers; D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011209:Power, Psychological; D016730:Program Development; D060756:Social Networking; D014930:Women / Q000523:psychology*; D016387:Women's Health; D014933:Women's Rights; D000078329:Workforce