Why this special issue?

World Health • 48th Year, Special Issue 1995 Women are the primary core-givers in the family and the community. Why this special issue? Very few issues of World Health fai l to carry an article on women's health. We thought it appropriate to draw from this weal th of information to prepare a special issue for distribution at the Fourth World Conference on Women being held in Bei jing in September 1995. The selected articles reprinted here emphas ize d ifferent aspects of women's heal th, as well as the role they play in care-giving and hea lth development. They show how diseases like AIDS or malaria pose special threats to them, how they suffer unduly from the consequences of certain lifestyles such as smoking, and how their health embraces more than just their own well-being: it determines the health status of the entire fami ly, and is a vita l element in the development of communities and countries. Some data may have changed since these articles were published , some of our authors may have new functions or titles , but most facts rema in va lid and the articles paint a broad picture of WHO's action in the field of women's health and development. Dr Souod Lyogoubi-Ouahchi Director, Division of Publishing, Language and Library Services, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. s