Welfare reform and women's health: Challenges and opportunities to advance the public response to the health needs of poor women through monitoring and collaboration

The WCHPC studied the extent of collaboration between state women's health officials and TANF officials with respect to programs that affect the health and well-being of poor women. The kinds and extent of monitoring activities designed to gather information on the health status of this population were also examined. Great unevenness across states was revealed for both collaboration and monitoring. State-level interest in improving both was assessed, barriers to improvement were identified, and recommendations for steps forward were solicited.