There is some discouraging news today about the state of women's health. As included in the New York Times, a new report from the National Women’s Law Center and Oregon Health and Science University shows that:
Over all, more women are obese, diabetic and hypertensive than just a few years ago, and more are testing positive for chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease linked to infertility.
Women are also doing more binge-drinking and less exercising, and fewer are being screened for cervical cancer.
Based on 26 indicators of health status, the report gave the U.S. an overall grade of unsatisfactory. And Michelle Berlin, MD, PhD, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at OHSU, told the Times, "The takeaway message is that we’re really not where we should be."
Despite the bleak findings, Danielle Garrett, a policy fellow at the law center, said in a blog entry that there's still reason to be hopeful. The new health law, she said, should lead to "major improvements in many of the areas examined in the Report Card."
