Pobreza menstrual y Salud Pública

Abstract

Menstrual poverty is a term that refers to the lack of access to menstrual hygiene products, adequate infrastructure, basic services such as drinking water, sewage, and privacy itself. By not being clear about the origin of menstruation, society has been creating its own concepts around it, which translates into the perpetuation of beliefs and, with this, the attribution of negative characteristics to menstruation. Thus, menstruation begins to be analyzed from the perspective of public health, demonstrating the gender gaps in the care of problems related to menstruation and generating negative consequences for the physical and psychological health of women. From the perspective of social work, the line of research is social exclusion and integration, with the objective of determining the influence of menstrual poverty on public health. In a population of 337 female students of the Chillanes Educational Unit, through the application of the finite formula, a sample of 181 women was reached. Using a quantitative approach, an instrument consisting of 44 questions with a Likert-type scale was designed and subjected to an analysis of validity by expert judgment and reliability by means of Cronbach's alpha. In this way, it was determined that menstrual poverty influences public health. In addition, after studying the dimensions studied, the lack of knowledge, the physical and psychological affections of menstruation, and the problems in accessing adequate menstrual management were evident