Women of Color in Peace, Security and Conflict Transformation The Race Across the Pond Initiative: Women of Color in the Healthcare System Series
the patient, symptom interprtation, and access to health care. It has repercussions on individuals’ health and seriously obstructs patients’ rights. d) Case examples Lead poisoning among Sub-Saharan Africans: Lead poisoning, acute, or chronic intoxication by lead are some of the social inequalities that are determined by the living place and have an impact on a person's health. Initially, RMGs’ illness was considered as cultural specificities affecting particularly individuals from sub-Saharan Africa. Patients’ housing and geographic location were not taken into account but the misinterpretation of this intoxication as a cultural trait dismissed a severe health problem. Immigrants’ Diabetes: When immigrant individuals are diagnosed with diabetes, practitioners often behove the situation as being triggered by the patients lifestyle (e.g., poor diet and lack of physical activity). These factors are immediately judged on cultural bases without considering their medical history, their financial barriers, their socioeconomic situation, or their geographic environment. Additionally, a change in diet is not always possible if the person does not have the financial resources, cannot increase physical activity, cannot access sports facilities (due to price or distance), or does not have a steady job to afford these changes. HIV-Positive Guyanan Patients: In the French Territory Guyana, some healthcare professionals do not take the time to explain to Guyana patients living with HIV about their infection. Sometimes, they do not prescribe the appropriate treatments assuming that patients would not have good medical compliance or sufficient understanding because of their “ethno-racial affiliation.” African Maternal health: Women perceived as “African” (immigrants, women of African heritage and/or black women) are more often referred to a caesarean section than white women and other groups of women. This is due to racial stereotypes on the size of their basins, which would be smaller because of supposedly ethnic or genetic factors. Many gyneco-obstetric studies on this topic highlight a pelvic size which may indeed be smaller than usual for African women born and / or raised in Sub-Saharan Africa who have immigrated in France, this is not the case for other women categorized as "African", particularly those born in France. Indeed, the size of the pelvis can be influenced by various physiological, environmental and / or medical factors such as puberty, undernutrition, early childbearing, and polio. Racial amalgamation contributes to inadequate care for the maternal health needs of so-called “African” women and women of African heritage for whom the use of caesarean section is not justified.
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