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Background: Men’s violence against women is a global health problem causing physical, mental, sexual and reproductive ill-health. The World Health Organisation has estimated that every third woman in the world has been exposed to physical and/or sexual violence. Swedish primary care is central for victims of violence, as it is normally the first port of call for seeking healthcare. This requires professional competence on violence, and its causes. It also requires resources for working with violence prevention, disclosure and supportive actions. The aim of this study is to deepen the understanding of how primary care professionals in Sweden deal with violence against women. We analyse their viewpoints, experiences and practices of working with violence as a health problem, and especially if, and if so how, they ask patients about violence.

Methods: A qualitative, explorative research design was adopted. Research interviews were conducted with 18 health professionals at eight primary care clinics. These clinics were located in four different regions, from the south to the north, in large urban areas, middle-size cities and rural areas. The interviews were voice recorded and transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the interviews.

Results: Three themes, with a total of ten related sub-themes, were developed. These themes are: (a) Varying understandings and explanations of violence against women; (b) The tricky question of asking about violence; and (c) Multiple suggestions for improving primary care’s work with violence against women. The awareness of violence varied considerably, with some practitioners being highly knowledgeable and having integrated violence into their everyday practice, whereas others were less knowledgeable and had not paid much attention to violence. The very naming of violence seemed to be problematic. Several suggestions for improvements at professional, managerial and organisational levels were articulated.

Conclusions: The results shed important light on the professionals’ problems and struggles when dealing with violence against women in primary care. Better support and resources from the healthcare organisation, clearer leadership and more detailed policy would improve and facilitate everyday practice. All of these factors are indispensable for primary care’s work with victims of men’s violence against women.

Background: This article focuses on knowledge development and health professionals’ opportunitiesto use evidence-based practice (EBP). We studied registered physiotherapists (PT), occupationaltherapists (OT) and nurses (RN) in Swedish elderly-care institutions, a sector known for highturnover and shortages of competent staff.Objective: To examine the perspectives of healthcare providers on professional knowledge developmentand EBP in their organization.

Methods: We conducted on-site qualitative interviews with a purposive sample of PTs, OTs andRNs, in six elderly care institutions. Situational analysis was used to analyze the material.

Results: Three discursive professional positions were found: 1) Professional ambition in confusingwork organization; 2) Professional ambition in a knowledge-promoting work organization; and 3) Professional indifference with few aspirations for knowledge development. Professional aspirationstoward knowledge development were high in two of these positions, whereas the third representsa slightly different approach with fewer aspirations for knowledge development. Linked to theseprofessional approaches to knowledge development is a continuum of aggravating or facilitatingfactors within the work organization, including varying degrees of support from leadership of theorganization, as well as few opportunities for rewards.

Discussion and conclusions: It is concluded that elderly care needs to develop strategies forevidence-based practice in order for the sector to become a sustainable arena for health professionals’career development, and in order to improve the quality of care for the elderly.

Objective: Policy documents govern how the prevention and care of obstetric anal sphincter injuries (OASIS) are implemented. Thus, in the absence of Swedish national guidelines on OASIS, differing views may be visible in the regional and local policy documents. Therefore, we aimed to analyse regional and local policies, guidelines, and care programs on the prevention of OASIS and care for OASIS-affected women in a Swedish context by applying a critical frame analysis inspired by Verloo.

Design and setting: A cross-sectional study of existing policy documents from Swedish healthcare regions was performed. The documents were analysed using Verloo's critical frame analysis.

Findings: We found that OASIS was framed as a preventable problem addressed by skilled protective manoeuvres of the healthcare staff. Education, communication, and teamwork were three frames of crucial solutions to minimise the prevalence of OASIS. However, complicating power dimensions between professional groups and between professionals and birthing women were identified. Furthermore, several discursive struggles were found, predominantly regarding the scientific evidence for the suggested prevention and care.

Conclusion: The policy documents emphasised that OASIS is preventable, and improved education, communication, and teamwork could diminish the OASIS prevalence. Nevertheless, power dimensions and discursive struggles may challenge the preventive efforts. Furthermore, each Swedish region has the sovereignty to develop its policies, which was reflected in our findings and may imply inequities in care provision. Thus, there is an urgent need to develop comprehensive national high-quality guidelines of high quality for OASIS prevention and care so that all women giving birth have access to equal care and treatment in Sweden.

Background: Several studies in Indonesia have shown the protective effect of women-headed households on the double burden of malnutrition (coexistence of undernutrition and overnutrition in a household). Many other studies have presented a positive impact on children’s health and conditions when women are educated, have higher social capital and have control of income and its intra-household allocation. However, how women’s status affects the nutritional status of a household and, in particular, of children still remains understudied.

Objective: In this study, our aim was to explore the role of gender relations and contextual factors for overnutrition and undernutrition among children within a household.

Method: We conducted a qualitative study in two provinces of Indonesia: Central Java (urban and rural) and Jakarta (central and suburban) among 123 community members (59 men and 64 women). We utilised principles of constructivist grounded theory in conducting this study, and focus group discussions were chosen as a tool to collect data.

Results: Three categories were constructed, capturing the significance of: (i) the man is dominant within the family (gendered power relations), (ii) the environment that makes the unhealthy choice the easy choice (the emerging obesogenic environment) and (iii) parents’ being concerned but unable to control their children’s eating habits (intersection of gender and generational relations) in child malnutrition.

Conclusion: Community health and nutrition programmes should help both women and men within the context of households to acknowledge and respect women’s status. More importantly, these programmes should involve men when it comes to children’s nutritional habits and consider them as an important factor in the realisation of gender equality and empowerment. Furthermore, it is increasingly important to recognise the implication of the availability and accessibility of junk food among children.

Background: Research suggests that social status in school plays an important role in the social lives of adolescents and that their social status is associated with their health. Additional knowledge about adolescents’ understanding of social hierarchies could help to explain inequalities in adolescents’ health and guide public health interventions.

Objective: The study aimed to explore what contributes to subjective social status in school and the strategies used for social positioning.

Methods: A qualitative research design with think-aloud interviews was used. The study included 57 adolescents in lower (7^th grade) and upper secondary school (12^th grade) in Sweden. Subjective social status was explored using a slightly modified version of the MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status in school. Data were analyzed using thematic network analysis.

Results: The participants were highly aware of their social status in school. Elements tied to gender, age, ethnicity and parental economy influenced their preconditions in the positioning. In addition, expectations on how to look, act and interact, influenced the pursue for social desirability. The way these different factors intersected and had to be balanced suggests that social positioning in school is complex and multifaceted.

Conclusions: Because the norms that guided social positioning left little room for diversity, the possible negative impact of status hierarchies on adolescents’ health needs to be considered. In school interventions, we suggest that norms on e.g. gender and ethnicity need to be addressed and problematized from an intersectional approach.

Women in prostitution are often disrespected and subject to health risks. The aim of this study is to explore how women formerly engaged in prostitution in Sri Lanka position themselves in relation to gendered norms of respectability, and to discuss the possible implications for their sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with fifteen women formerly engaged in prostitution. Discourse analysis was used to identify and describe interpretative repertoires and four repertoires were identified: Victimhood, Resistance, Responsibility, and Independence. The first three were drawn upon to construct their identities in line with norms of female respectability, as the women emphasised being victims of unfortunate situations, resisting sexual disrespectability and taking responsibility for their children and others. The last repertoire deviated from the respectability norm as it conveyed a picture of the women as independent, strong and courageous subjects, characteristics more in line with male respectability in Sri Lanka. Despite marginalised and oppressive circumstances, the women drew on interpretative repertoires to enhance access to respect, dignity and resources. However, their vulnerability to violence, SRHR risks and virtual absence of rights leave them with little access to resources that could enable a healthier and better life.

This article focuses on policy and law concerning violence against women as a public health issue. In Sweden, violence against women is recently recognized as a public health problem; we label this shift "The public health turn on violence against women". The new framing implies increased demands on the Swedish healthcare sector and its’ ability to recognise violence and deal with it in terms of prevention and interventions. The aim was to describe and discuss the main content and characteristics of Swedish healthcare law, and national public health and gender-equality policies representing the public health turn on violence against women. Through discursive policy analysis, we investigate how the violence is described, what is regarded to be the problem and what solutions and interventions that are suggested in order to solve the problem. Healthcare law articulates violence against women as an ordinary healthcare issue and the problem as shortcomings to provide good healthcare for victims, but without specifying what the problem or the legal obligation for the sector is. The public health problem is rather loosely defined, and suggested interventions are scarce and somewhat vague. The main recommendations for healthcare are to routinely ask patients about violence exposure. Violence against women is usually labelled "violence within close relationships" in the policies, and it is not necessarily described as a gender equality problem. While violence against women in some policy documents is clearly framed as a public health problem, such a framing is absent in others, or is transformed into a gender-neutral problem of violence within close relationships. It is not clearly articulated what the framing should lead to in terms of the healthcare sector's obligations, interventions and health promotions, apart from an ambivalent discourse on daring to ask about violence.