The specific women's health issues that our questionnaire focussed on included oesteoporosis, breast cancer and cervical cancer. Bone thinning through osteoporosis is a major and largely preventable condition that renders older people and especially women vulnerable to bone fractures. The cost to the community of this condition could possibly be reduced through education and knowledge of preventive measures. The leading cause of cancer mortality in western women is breast cancer. Submissions to the National Women's Health Policy emphasised the need to immediately increase public awareness and education about breast cancer and breast self-examination.
Pap smears are an important measure in helping to prevent cervical cancer.
We hypothesised that the rural women taking part in our study would follow the norm and have a low level of knowledge about osteoporosis, breast self-examinations and pap smears, as well as a low incidence of related preventive practices. We also hypothesised a low level of knowledge about the location of various body organs. The high level of knowledge about pap smears in the present study, may, at least partially, be due to the fact that Heyfield has a female doctor in residence. Over half of the women in our study said that their doctor had discussed pap smears with them. The amount of knowledge a person had on health issues was not linked with their age, therefore this suggested that there is no one particular age group that needs to be targeted.