P ART F OUR

The 2008 report of the Integrated Pan-Canadian Healthy Living Strateg (y1) acknowledged the importance of actions to improve the physical, social and economic conditions that foster unhealthy ways of living and constrain individuals and communities from improving their health and reducing health disparities (2). [...] While we were not able, within the scope of this report, to address all the elements of healthy living that we feel are important to women, we hope that our selection of topics for the profile illustrates the value of a fuller, richer view of the field. [...] Moreover, it stresses the importance of organizational and social conditions for mental health and argues for the creation of mentally healthy schools and workplaces and acknowledges their importance in contributing to mental health challenges and potential for supporting mental wellbeing. [...] The new mental health strategy may provide a model for the approach to healthy living among women in Canada we have described in this report, one that embraces a comprehensive view of the diversity of women in Canada, recognizes the links between physical and mental health, and one that sees women in Canada as resilient not just vulnerable. [...] We have illustrated that SGBA can be applied to all aspects of a health issue—from the discourse that frames and expresses it through to the data collection and research that informs action to the programs and policies that direct change.