What does ‘place’ have to do with immigrant women’s health?

Hosted by: Dot Bonnenfant

The event will start on: Dec 02, 2010 13:00

And will end on: Dec 02, 2010 14:00

Immigrant women’s experiences seeking reproductive health services and support in three Ottawa, Ontario neighbourhoods

Recent immigrant women continue to face challenges related to reproductive health, including a low uptake of preventive services and barriers to access to care.  However, much research in this area focuses solely on health care settings and neglects the broader context that shapes immigrant women’s opportunities for reproductive health.  This presentation will describe research in progress that seeks to contextualize immigrant women’s reproductive health by exploring their experiences in relation to ‘place’ in three different neighbourhoods in Ottawa, Ontario.

The notion of ‘place’ can have different definitions, but is understood in this work to imply not only physical locations and built environments, but also relations between people, and personal feelings attributed to given places.  Thus, ‘place’ is fluid, changing, and may be experienced differently by different members of the population.  For immigrant women, their position as newcomers to Canada, and the intersecting burdens of poverty, and ethnicity- and gender-based disadvantage faced by some women may impact these experiences.  Increased understanding of this issue is important as we seek to design policies and programs to provide immigrant women with equitable opportunities for reproductive health. 

Participants in this presentation will:
• Learn about different understandings of ‘place’ and emerging findings regarding the importance of ‘place’ to immigrant women’s reproductive health
• Discuss how experiences of a given ‘place’ may vary for different sub-populations and vulnerable populations in particular
• Discuss potential implications for interventions to improve immigrant women’s opportunities for reproductive health

Advisor on Tap:
Heather Greenwood, MSc
PhD Candidate
Population Health, University of Ottawa

Bio:
Heather Greenwood is a PhD candidate in Population Health at the University of Ottawa, and a student in the Ontario Training Centre in Health Services and Policy Research diploma program.  Her current research seeks to understand recent immigrant women's experiences seeking reproductive health information, services, and support in three different Ottawa, Ontario neighbourhoods.  This research is funded by a CIHR Canada Graduate Scholarships Doctoral Award.  Heather previously completed her MSc in the Collaborative Program in Bioethics at the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics, and HBSc in Human Biology at the University of Toronto.