Abstract
Communication injustice and health inequalities among Pakistani migrant women seeking healthcare in Hong Kong: A qualitative study
Asim Saba, Elena Nichini, PhD, MA, Aneeta Ansar and Dong Dong, PhD, MPhil
JC School of Public Health and Primary Care, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong
APHA 2023 Annual Meeting and Expo
Engrained in the city colonial past, discrimination targeting Pakistanis in Hong Kong affects their everyday life and contributes to limit access to care. However, when talking about barriers for Pakistani women’s access to healthcare services in the city, language is often highlighted as the most pervasive one. Clearly language challenges in healthcare are not merely about language itself; at stake is who is entitled to participate in the labor of care and tell the stories. Intersecting social identities of Pakistani migrant women further shape their experience of communication injustice, as their health needs and narratives are not “heard”.
Based on an ongoing qualitative research project among Pakistani migrant women in Hong Kong, this paper will explore communicative injustice in healthcare settings and its implication for these migrant women’s health.
Our interviewees from in-depth interviews and focus group discussions provide us their vivid accounts on how confused and worried they are after being treated “differently”; that they may turn to self-management and discontinue the prescribed therapy, and ultimately compromise care for themselves and for their families. They largely don't feel acknowledged and "heard" by doctors. While the public healthcare system provides interpretation services to deal with language barriers, the service seems to disable rather than enabling these so-called “ethnic minority” users, and “othering” them through reproducing stereotypical narratives of these users.
This paper ultimately will show how a different access to medical knowledge and a hegemonic communicative approach interwoven with the histories of ethnic, class and gender inequalities hinders equal care in Hong Kong.
Advocacy for health and health education Diversity and culture Provision of health care to the public Public health or related research Social and behavioral sciences