Handbook on Sex, Gender and Health: Perspectives from South Asia

This Handbook is the first of its kind addressing gender issues in health in the South Asian Region, namely: Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Adopting a social determinant of health perspective and an intersectionality and diversity lens, the Handbook illustrates the multi-layered complexities of gender, health, and well-being from the diverse perspectives and lived experiences in different South Asian countries. It includes studies on under-researched and often invisible marginalized populations, such as LGBTQI populations, urban poor, persons living with disability, migrant and conflict-affected populations. It represents the voices of the elderly, adolescents, and young people. It goes beyond analyzing the problem of gender inequities in health, and present examples of gender-transformative policies, programmes and social movement action. It is an essential resource for researchers, policy-makers, students in public health and community-based organizations involvedin research, policies, or programs related to sex work, public health, social justice and gender-based violence.

​TK Sundari Ravindran has more than 40 years of experience as an author and editor internationally. Sundari has more than a 100 publications to her credit, including articles in peerreviewed journals, monographs, book chapters and edited volumes. She is a lead author of several WHO publications on gender and health, with a focus on sexual and reproductive health, starting from an early publication in 1984. Sundari is also the editor of a WHO training manual on gender and rights in reproductive health. In 1992, she joined as founding co-editor of the international journal ’Reproductive Health Matters, ’ and continued in this position for a little over six years. Sundari is currently a senior editor of the same journal, now renamed ’Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters.’ She has co-edited several books, including ’Health inequities in India: A synthesis of recent evidence’ by Springer. Sundari has been a guest editor for several journal issues, and a regular reviewer formajor peer reviewed international journals including PLOS One, Global Public Health, BMJ, The Lancet, Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters, International Journal of Equity in Health, Economic and Political Weekly, and the Indian Journal of Public Health. She has also reviewed book proposals and manuscripts for Springer and Routledge publishers. As a professor at Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Sundari has conducted regular workshops for research scholars on scientific writing and publishing.
M. Sivakami has published widely (55 plus articles) in peer-reviewed national and international journals such as Lancet, PLOS One, BMJ Open, Journal of Global Health, BMC-Public Health, International Journal of Health Policy Management (IJHPM), Journal of Bio-Social Science (JBS), Asian Population Studies, Health Transition Review, Economic and Political Weekly, Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, Demography India, and Sociological Bulletin among others. She has also published chapters in books published by Springer and Palgrave Macmillan. Sivakami has reviewed papers for several international and national journals on various issues related to gender and health. M. Sivakami is an Academic Editor in PLOS Global Public Health and a member of the Editorial Board for BMC-Women’s Midlife Health.

Anjana Bhusan has had a few papers published in various peer reviewed journals in the past. She has also co-authored, edited and reviewed several in-house publications as WHO staff member.

Sabina Faiz Rashid has authored approximately 90 peer reviewed articles, co-authored a book on pregnancy practices, and has contributed to several international book chapters. She serves as a member of the editorial board on various journals.

Kausar S. Khan is on the Board of several development organizations working at the community level, and one focuses more on policy and research for gender. She is also part of several feminist Whatsapp groups, and also one that focuses on Family Planning. She is also part of the Alumni of Community Health Sciences of Aga Khan Univrsity, from where some potential contributors may be accessed These groups include researchers and program analysts, and those more interested in policy formulations. She is also part of a national reproductive health networks where organizations from all provinces of Pakistan are represented.