Gender in tuberculosis research

Gender studies as an area of research have developed to address the social, cultural and contextual factors that disproportionately affect the ability of women to promote their health and treat disease. The importance of gender in health and disease is now clearly established and increasingly evident in mainstream public health as well as in clinical and social medicine. The inordinate focus on women in the research in this area, however, while justified, has had the effect of almost excluding the experiences of men. More importantly, it continues to limit our understanding of the dynamic interactive social processes that may provide the key to effective public health interventions for the management and control of communicable diseases. Using tuberculosis as a case study, we outline the contribution of gender studies in the control of disease and highlight the ongoing challenges that need to be addressed to enhance the understanding of the role of gender in public health.