Women's wellness spans from childhood into adolescence, through the childbearing period, and into older age. It includes not only wellness issues related to cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other chronic conditions but also the consequences of intimate partner violence and mental health issues.Throughout the life course, women's health should be a priority. Healthier women lead to healthier babies, which lead to healthier communities. In addition, when women are connected to the health care system, their families are also more likely to be connected. This issue of the North Carolina Medical Journal explores the many aspects of women's health and its many impacts.
Improving the health of women is an important issue that requires our collective attention. Not only is every woman impacted by her own health status, but her health also influences her entire family. This issue of the North Carolina Medical Journal focuses on the health status of women throughout the lifespan.Healthier women tend to have healthier birth outcomes. Supporting women during the preconception period in order to help them address chronic health issues, behavioral health issues, and social and economic challenges helps to move women toward a more positive life trajectory. Social determinants of health [1]-the structural conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age-also play a critical role. A focus on social determinants of health is needed in order to address our ongoing challenges with health equity.North Carolina has long been striving to improve women's perinatal health. In March 2016, the state released a collaborative 12-point Perinatal Health Strategic Plan that focused on infant mortality, maternal health, maternal mortality, and the health status of men and women of childbearing age. In this issue of the NCMJ, Sarah Verbiest and I outline the key components of this plan and provide details on these 12 points [2]. This plan focuses on improving health care for women and men, strengthening families and communities, and addressing social and economic inequities. Adapting the framework shared by Michael Lu and colleagues [3], the plan infuses social determinants of health and health equity throughout. As data confirm, we must address the 2-fold disparity in birth outcomes in order to see overall improvements. Also in this issue, a sidebar by Brett Prestia and colleagues [4] offers a historical perspective on infant mortality in our state since the late 1980s, including programs and services that were developed during that time. This article references Executive Order 99 [5], which established the 5-year Governor's Commission on the Reduction of Infant Mortality. This sidebar also provides information on more recent efforts, one of which is the development of a statewide Preconception Health Strategic Plan [6] in 2008 and the supplement to this plan developed in 2014 [7]. Both documents focus on strategies for women to improve behaviors and chronic health conditions. The plan's priorities include pregnancy intendednes...