Given the aging concerns unique to women lower - socioeconomic and health status relative to men, outliving the helping networks of family and friends - Self-Help Support Groups for Older Women is an essential resource for those setting up self-help programs for older women.

It fills a major gap in the literature on aging by analyzing the efforts of a select group of innovative community programs that use self-help and self-care methods to try to reconstruct older women's informal social support systems.

This book is based on a research study that was designed to collect new and much needed information about the special benefits and drawbacks of formal organizations' efforts to build social networks for older women.

The study involved a two-tiered investigation: a review of a select group of model self-help support programs for older women throughout the United States; and an in-depth community case study of a nationally recognized model program of self-help support groups, leadership training, networks, and community outreach/education for older women (SOWN, the Supportive Older Women's Network, Philadelphia, PA).