Women of Color in Peace, Security and Conflict Transformation The Race Across the Pond Initiative: Women of Color in the Healthcare System Series
PART II - PRINCIPLE OF HEALTH CARE QUALITY Authors: Yasmine El Addouli*, Saara Bouhouche “The discrimination to which people, who are perceived as of non-European origin, are exposed, through their referrals, are supported by official data and research: Differences in treatment based on origin are a large-scale phenomenon. Deploying in all spheres of social life, these practices, sometimes openly discriminatory, constitute --for immigrants, descendants of immigrants, or people who are simply perceived as such-- daily pressures with lasting and deleterious effects on the life course and the social relations of a large part of the population residing in France” (France’s Defender of Rights, 2020). 1. LACK OF REPRESENTATION AND INCLUSIVENESS IN BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH AND CLINICAL TRIALS In general, RMGs, including women, are underrepresented in biomedical research. A large majority of clinical study participants do not include RMGs.This situation has direct and indirect consequences on the population’s health since some therapies and medical devices, used in a standardized way, are not suitable for everyone. This oversight impacts the therapeutic support provided to RMG populations even today. Although France is very largely affected by intersectional discrimination and structural inequities in health care, notably with a lack of representation of RMGs in biomedical research, questioning the discriminatory effects of racialization in health is rarely discussed or documented in France. Unlike in the United States and Great Britain, the topic is still considered taboo. As a consequence, additionally to the French resources, documentations and research, when comparisons were relevant and possible, this paper relied on the assistance of foreign scientific and empirical literature as illustrations. This document is an invitation to further reflect and understand how inequity is produced in public health. In order to remedy the lack of representation of RMGs in biomedical research, researchers such as Steven Epstein argue in favor of oversampling racialized groups and women. Along the efforts of many social movements to fight for decolonization, equal civil rights, social justice, and anti-discriminations, biomedical research began to focus, at the end of the 80s in North America and in the beginning of the 90s in France, on the lack of representativeness of women and “ethnic groups” in clinical trials.
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