APRU Universities can play active role in increasing economic participation of women by combatting health inequalities in the Asia-Pacific region
June 4, 2017
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(R-L) Assistant Professor Mellissa Withers, USC Institute for Global Health and Program Manager of the APRU Global Health Program and Christina Schönleber, Deputy Director, APRU International Secretariat

Economic participation of women due to health inequalities and gender differentials is lower in the Asia-Pacific region than other global regions. The implications of this are that sustainable economic growth is hard to achieve if women are unable to fully participate in the economy due to health implications.

To combat this trend the US Department of Labor, collaborating closely with the Departments of Health and Labor and the Commission on Women in the Philippines and other APEC economies, set up the Healthy Women Healthy Economies (HWHE) project in 2015 to develop a toolkit to improve economic female economic participation through better health.

This year, alongside the second APEC Senior Official Meetings (SOM2), representatives from APEC economies and global experts convened at a workshop in Hanoi, Viet Nam to share lessons learns and implementation experiences of the HWHE toolkit.

Assistant Professor Mellissa Withers from USC Institute for Global Health and Program Manager of the APRU Global Health (GH) Program was one of the expert presenters at the workshop. Using the APRU Sydney Statement on Employee Health and Well-Being as one example, Dr Withers highlighted how University research is supporting the implementation of health and wellness strategies in the workplace and act as leaders in closing the gender gap in terms of health inequalities.

For more information about the APEC Healthy Women Health Economies project, visit the website: http://healthywomen.apec.org

See the full Sydney Statement on Employee Health and Well-Being here.

For more information about the APRU GH Hub see here.

For more information how APRU member universities can get engaged with APEC and the HWHE project, contact Christina Schönleber, Deputy Director, APRU International Secretariat.