More detailed and in-depth than most books in the field, with more than 300 A-Z entries on diseases, domestic violence and eating disorders.
-- Women's Health Supplement, New York Times

For anyone who has a burning health query, The Harvard Guide to Women's Health is, quite simply, the book buy of the decade. It looks like a heavyweight, medical-school textbook, but it's actually an easy-to-follow, Q & A health manual that covers everything from alcohol abuse and breast care to cosmetic surgery and depression. It's the next best thing to having your own at-home GP.
-- Cosmopolitan

Almost anything you need to know about women's health--from breast-feeding to wrinkles--can be found in The Harvard Guide to Women's Health. This encyclopedic guide covers women's health concerns at every stage of life and is a superb resource for those who want to be active in their own health care.
-- Living Fit

A remarkably navigable virtual encyclopedia...The guide is more than a laundry list of diseases. It covers a host of psychosocial issues, from rape and domestic violence to sexual harassment and sexual preference...A good gauge of any medical book purporting to be the definitive one for women is how well it covers gender issues in heart disease, a field that has historically neglected women. Here the guide gets high marks.
-- Leslie Laurence Houston Chronicle

This exhaustive resource offers information on everything from adolescent acne to menopause in the belief that better-informed women can have better partnerships with their physicians.
-- Chicago Tribune

From A to Z, [The Harvard Guide to Women’s Heath] skillfully traverses topics from abdominal pain, through cytolytic vaginitis, interstitial cystitis, onward to occupational hazards, and, ultimately, zinc… In both the book and on the CD-ROM, finding information is easy… One patient commented, ‘In my house this book would be brought out a lot—for myself, when talking to my sisters, mother or close friends. It’s practically a coffee-table book.’
-- Charlea T. Massion, M.D. Journal of the American Medical Association

A comprehensive and up-to-date guide to the health problems that plague women of all ages...well written and well organized...The Harvard Guide is a detailed and highly recommended current resource.
-- Library Journal

This text contains a massive amount of basic, sound and unsensationally presented information...The uncomplicated language and writing style render the required facts, once found, easily accessible to a reader.
-- Jill Mantle Physiotherapy Journal

This is a reliable, well-written, and accessible guide. I have learned a great deal from it, and I know I'll be using it as a reference.
-- Perri Klass, M.D., author of Other Women's Children and Baby Doctor

This is a splendidly comprehensive book; women of all ages will find it fascinating and immensely helpful--and hard to put down. The summaries are clear and well-written, the listings of related entries at the end of each entry provide the reader with a basic understanding of the topics covered. The information and drawings about medical procedures are especially helpful in dispelling the myths and mysteries of these procedures. Finally, the authors, two physicians and a medical historian, have excellent credentials. I believe this book is a wonderful source of information for equipping women to discuss their health care in a positive, confident way with their physicians. It is a welcome addition to the growing literature about women's health.
-- Bernadine Healy, M.D., Former Director, National Institutes of Health

[named a PW Best Book of 1996]
The projected Harvard University Press Reference Library is off to an impressive start with its first volume, a comprehensive guide to what women need to know to form effective partnerships with their physicians. Carlson and Eisenstat, co-editors of The Primary Care of Women, and Ziporyn, a medical journalist and historian, offer an authoritative and accessible means to this end. Encyclopedic coverage includes over 300 main entries arranged alphabetically from Abdominal Pain to Zinc, plus an extensive index that directs readers to discussions of several hundred subtopics...Matters related to reproduction are emphasized, but general topics such as alternative therapies, exercise, nutrition and concerns common to both sexes, such as diabetes and coronary artery disease, are also discussed, with attention given to how symptoms and treatment may differ for women. Descriptions of specific therapies and procedures are clear; many are accompanied by exceptionally lucid line drawings. The resource directory includes organizations, print sources, Internet and World Wide Web sites.

-- Publishers Weekly