JAMWA Winter Issue Focuses on Welfare Reform and Women’s Health

The Winter 2002 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Women's Association focuses on how health status affects the ability of current and former welfare recipients -- 90% of whom are women caring for children -- to retain employment. According to Dr. Wendy Chavkin, JAMWA editor-in-chief, the "impending renewal" of the 1996 welfare reform law offers health professionals a chance to "be heard ... (because) decisions about welfare policy may prove as important to (patients') health as anything we do in a clinical encounter." Articles appearing in the issue include:

• "What Causes Job Loss Among Former Welfare Recipients: The Role of Family Health Problems," by Alison Earle and Dr. Jody Heymann.
• "Five Years Later: Poor Women's Health Care Coverage After Welfare Reform," by Cindy Mann et al.
• "Depression Among Women on Welfare: A Review of Literature," by Mary Lennon et al.
• Editorial: "Welfare, Women, and Children: It's Time for Doctors to Speak Out," by Dr. Wendy Chavkin et al.
• Commentary: "Substance Abuse and Welfare Reform," by Mary Nakashian (JAMWA release, 2/14).