Incorporating gender analysis into health systems implementation research

This chapter explores how gender analysis can be incorporated into health systems implementation research. This is the process of analysing how gendered power relations influence the implementation of an intervention, as well as the extent to which the research process itself progressively transforms gendered power relations, or at least does not exacerbate them. Gender is defined as the “socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women”. Gender is different from sex, which refers to the biological chromosomal characteristics that distinguish males, females, and intersex people. The meaning of gender can therefore extend beyond men and women to include a range of gendered identities while also varying over time and across contexts. As well as analysing differences between men, women, and people of other genders, gender analysis also explores differences among these categories. It takes an intersectional approach which examines “gender in relation to other social stratifiers, such as class, race, education, ethnicity, age, geographic location, (dis)ability and sexuality, etc., how these markers dynamically interact, [and] how power plays out at multiple levels and through diverse pathways to frame how vulnerabilities are experienced”.

Morgan R., Theobald S., Hawkins K., Waldman L. and Elsey H. (2016) Incorporating gender analysis into health systems implementation research, in A Practical Guide to Implementation Research, Future Health Systems