Understanding Barriers to Healthcare Among Resettled Refugees

Written by Olivia Kimble, Student Midwife at Bastyr University for the first class in the Midwifery Care series

The life of a refugee is inarguably more difficult than most healthcare workers probably imagine. It is easy to forget about the challenges refugees face because many of our own communities are made up of homogeneous, native-born citizens. Citizens are more likely to understand and exercise their access to healthcare through private or community clinics, or, as a last resort, the emergency department. In contrast, a refugee has to overcome additional obstacles before accessing healthcare, and then might only have access to racist and xenophobic providers.  

The people displaced because of civil war, political oppression, and economic instability face many challenges and traumas in their attempt to seek liberty and safety. Once these people have made it to a new location, usually illegally, they face hurdle after hurdle trying to establish a life. Refugees are subject to sweeping employment discrimination because they cannot speak the native language (or are easily recognized because of an accent), are undocumented and therefore cannot demand better working conditions or livable salaries, and cannot setup informal businesses without attracting law enforcement (Langa, 2011).

Langa (2011) reports that “by and large refugee women live in fear, and feel dislocated, and displaced” (p. 2). As a provider it’s important to recognize how a refugee’s health status is tied directly to their plight as a refugee. Understandably, refugees are probably not the most reliable patients because they have to spend such an inordinate amount of time finding or creating livable income to support themselves and their families.

What some health care providers might describe as uncooperative or difficult patient behavior was clearly visible in The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (Fadiman, 1997). Lia’s parents are continually seen as disagreeable because their Hmong customs and ideas conflict with American ideals of personal responsibility and hierarchical submission to their doctors’ orders. The Lee family relied on state assistance and thus did not have the freedom of movement, time, and resources that the doctors expected from their patients. Foua’s culturally-motivated rapt attention to Lia and her determination to carry her, clothe her, feed her, and love her regardless of her physical health status created a strange tension between her doctors who were also trying to care for Lia in their own American, individual way (Fadiman, 1997). Unfortunately the doctors who treated Lia were somehow immune to the family’s plight as refugees and saw their battle for economic security as a hindrance to their care instead of informing how to best care for the Lee family.

Refugees are often among the hardest working people in any country because they have to be. Finding a new home, creating economic stability, and rebuilding a community are monumental tasks to undertake even with good health. Unfortunately, needing and seeking healthcare as a refugee might be as costly and dangerous as remaining ill.

References:

Fadiman, Anne. (1997). The spirit catches you and you fall down: A Hmong child, her American doctors, and the collision of two cultures. New York, NY: The Noonday Press.

Langa, M. (2011). Women empowerment: A case study of a refugee women’s group at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. Retrieved from http://www.csvr.org.za/images/docs/Other/women_empowerment_a%20case_study_of_a_refugee_women_s_group_appendix_e.pdf

Written by Olivia Kimble, Student Midwife at Bastyr University for the first class in the Midwifery Care series

Racial Disparities Persist

Despite the national Healthy People objectives established every ten years for the last three decades by the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, maternal and infant health indicators in this country continue to demonstrate a significant need for improvement, particularly among racial and ethnic minorities (Mathews & MacDorman, 2006).  In their call to action to the public health profession, Garcia and Sharif (2015) commented that “the health consequences of living in a racially stratified society are illustrated by a myriad of health outcomes that systematically occur along racial lines, such as disproportionately higher rates of infant mortality” (p. e28).

Two areas of concern, in particular, have been identified as leading health indicators with regard to maternal and infant health in the US: all infant deaths and total preterm live births.  These two health indicators, in addition to many others, provide clear examples of the health disparities faced by people of color in the US.  The rate of infant deaths (within the first year of life) is more than doubled for black or African American babies when compared to white infants (10.8 per 1,000 vs 5.1 per 1,000 in 2013).  Infants of persons identified as American Indian or Alaska Native are also disproportionately affected (7.6 deaths/1,000 live births in 2013) (Mathews & MacDorman, 2006).  While overall infant deaths have been decreasing, the health care disparities outlined above have persisted since at least 2006, the earliest year analysis by race/ethnicity is provided publicly by HealthyPeople.gov.  Preterm birth rates (before 37 completed weeks gestation) are also consistently found to be higher for mothers who are black or African American (16.0%), American Indian or Alaska Native (13.1%), and Hispanic or Latina (11.3%) when compared to white mothers (10.5%) in the US  (data from 2013).  While the causes of health care disparities and inequities are multifactorial, racial disparities are a well-documented factor.

NOTE: The phrase ‘maternal and infant health’ is used above due to its widespread use and recognition in public health literature.  The use of this phrase is not intended to exclude or ignore the health issues faced by transgender and genderqueer persons who may not identify as mothers.

References:

García, J., & Sharif, M. Z. (2015). Black Lives Matter: A commentary on racism and public health. American Journal of Public Health, 105(8), e27-e30. doi://10.2105/AJPH.2015.302706

Mathews T. J., & MacDorman M. F. (2010). Infant mortality statistics from the 2006 period linked birth/infant death data set. National Vital Statistics Report, 58:17, 1-31. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46146499_Infant_mortality_statistics_from_the_2006_period_linked_birthinfant_death_data_set .

If All Lives Really Mattered

The main strand of the alternative birth movement in the US which has been lead primarily by white, middle class women since the 1970s often conceptualizes their work as a pursuit of liberty and happiness.  Publications and participants characterize the movement as ensuring a woman’s right to an empowering pregnancy and birth experience.  The concepts of one’s rights are inexorably tied to notions of liberty, but much like the historical roots of freedom (and lack thereof based on race and gender) in our country, rights have been granted by the powerful only to those deemed fully human and deserving of happiness.  Happiness and rights are permitted by the systems of power currently in place only in forms still confined within the status quo.

Oparah and Bonaparte (2016) point out the ways in which the birthing consumer’s right to empowerment narrative has emerged and succeeded in public discourse precisely because it doesn’t challenge the deeper social and economic forces at work which serve to subjugate and ignore the most vulnerable pregnant people (15).  Indeed they argue that “legislators opposed to feminism…and to left-wing countercultural tendencies have found it possible to support the consumer right of (white, middle-class) mothers to ‘purchase’ the birth experience they desire”  (14).   

Empowerment is presumed by many in the modern white, middle class midwifery movement to be a desirable goal leading to happiness and therefore to be pursued in the name of all women.  The tendency in the second-wave feminist movement to claim to speak for all women while not taking “black women’s concerns seriously” (13) has emerged throughout the movement for reproductive rights.  In 2003, the Feminist Majority Foundation and others agreed to change the name of the protest march they were planning in response to criticisms from diverse stakeholders that the movement needs to broaden its perspectives and goals.  Black women and others on the margins, it was argued, are not available to simply protest for their right to safe abortion.  Instead, the diverse organizations courted wanted recognition that they are literally fighting for women’s lives.  As a result of the broad coalition formed, the March for Women’s Lives (2004) was one of the largest protests of all time in Washington, DC.  I see this example as illustrative of the ways in which the birth justice movement is more about life than about liberty and happiness.  Interestingly, life is the banner taken up by the inspiring present day grassroots movement Black Lives Matter.  Of course this second Civil Rights movement is also about liberty and happiness (in the form of dignity and respect), but who has time to espouse liberty when you and your loved ones are so busy fighting for your lives.    

An ignorant response to the Black Lives Matter movement has been “#alllivesmatter.”  If “all lives matter”ed as much as the lives of white wealthy people, particularly men, then the health care disparities in the US based on race could not possibly exist to the extent that they do.  Reforms to the US healthcare system have consistently benefited racial and ethnic minorities less than their white counterparts and this trend continues today.  US statistics on maternal and infant mortality and morbidity demonstrate that babies and women, especially black and brown babies and women, do not fare nearly as well as whites.  While the US healthcare system is in many ways failing women and infants in general when compared to other developed countries, women and babies of color are dying at alarmingly higher rates than white women and babies.  The statistics on which my above claims rest have been around since the previous century.  Despite awareness of health care disparities and social determinants of health in some sectors of the US health care non-system, meaningful changes that affect peoples’ lives on the ground have been slow to develop.  

So what do we do with this information?  Where do we go from here?  Visit our blog post titled Plugging Into this Important Work

Reference:

Oparah, J. C., & Bonaparte, A. D. (Eds.). (2015). Birthing Justice: Black Women, Pregnancy, and Childbirth. Routledge.

http://www.blackwomenbirthingjustice.org

Revised: Plugging into this important work

To find out more about how to get connected to this important, ongoing work, visit the following sites describing more active initiatives, committees and task forces:

AROMidwifery Facebook page

Equity in Midwifery Education for educators, administrators, staff, and students

National Association of Birth Centers & Clinics of Color Facebook page (NABCC)

Social Justice and Birth by NACPM (National Association of Certified Professional Midwives)

ACNM’s Diversification and Inclusion Initiative (American College of Nurse-Midwives)

Black Mamas Matter: A Toolkit for Advancing the Human Right to Safe and Respectful Maternal Healthcare

The National Association to Advance Black Birth (NAABB) formerly known as International Center for Traditional Childbearing (ICTC)

Changing Woman Initiative Native American-centered women’s health collective

National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health