Tag Archive for: women’s rights

Empowering Change: Celebrating the International Day of Action for Women’s Health

Authors: Tanvi Puri, PhD Candidate, University of British Columbia & Bonnie Lee, PhD Candidate, University of British Columbia/CAMH | Editor: Romina Garcia de leon (blog coordinator)

Published: May 28th, 2024

The International Day of Action for Women is celebrated annually on May 28, and is dedicated to raising awareness of and advocating for women’s health and rights. This day was first observed in 1987, and aims to advocate for women’s reproductive rights, highlight healthcare disparities faced by women, raise awareness about gender-based violence, and promote sexual health and rights. 

One of our key missions at the WHRC is to advocate for the improvement of women+’s health research and policy. Members of the WHRC have dedicated their time and expertise to advocating for women’s health by testifying before the Canadian Parliament (more details linked below). Several Cluster members were invited by the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Health to appear as part of a panel of witnesses in view of its study of women’s health, with a focus on mental health. Dr. Liisa Galea highlighted the importance of recognizing the importance of studying female-specific factors affecting health, and recognizing sex differences in medical research to ensure tailored and effective healthcare treatments. Dr. Catriona Hippman called for increased awareness and access to genetic screening and counseling services, particularly for individuals with a family history or disease risk. Dr. Tina Montreuil spoke about the urgent need to increase support and resources for perinatal mental health services, and the significant impact of mood disorders and anxiety during pregnancy and the postpartum period. Their testimonies emphasize the breadth and urgency of critical issues facing women’s health. You can view the meeting details and video recordings here for April 11 (Dr. Liisa Galea) and here April 8 (Drs. Catriona Hippman and Tina Montreuil).

One of our Senior Cluster Leads, Dr. Liisa Galea, and Cluster members Dr. Laura Gravelsins and Tallinn Splinter, also submitted a policy brief to the House of Commons highlighting the chronic underfunding and undervaluation of women’s health research on behalf of the WHRC and Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. They note that although women live longer than men, they do so with more chronic diseases and mental health conditions, and points out that the lack of effective research on women’s health variables leads to delayed diagnoses and suboptimal treatments for women. They call for dedicated funding, specialized peer review committee, and mandatory training in sex and gender-based analysis to bridge the knowledge gap and improve health outcomes for everyone. In addition to advocating for women’s health research to parliament, the WHRC supports and showcases the publication of scientific peer reviewed articles as well as other knowledge mobilization initiatives. A recently published article about the disparity in women’s health research funding can be found here and Dr. Liisa Galea’s op-ed in the Toronto Star can be found here. 

Dr. Wendy Norman, another member of the WHRC, has contributed extensively to sexual and reproductive health research and policy. She plays an important role in leading public health initiatives and using evidence-based practices that work to enhance access to contraceptives and abortion, and development of reproductive rights, particularly in underserved and rural communities. Dr. Norman is also involved with the education and training of healthcare providers, and her research findings have informed healthcare practices worldwide. Initiatives like those led by Dr. Norman have informed policy decisions and paved the way for the recent momentous decision for the federal  government to make contraceptives free across Canada in 2024.

Small individual actions by community members can snowball and make a significant impact! Here are a few things you could do to make a meaningful contribution to advancing women’s health: 

  • Advocate for policy change by signing local petitions, writing to your MLA, or vote in support of research funding, improved maternal and fetal healthcare, and increased access to reproductive health services. 
  • Volunteer to participate in research studies, or share calls that others might be able to participate in that you don’t qualify for. 
  • Share information about women’s health issues on social media, or participate in community events and awareness campaigns.
  • Support and donate to women’s health organizations such as the Women’s Health Research Institute, Planned Parenthood, or local women’s clinics.

There is a desperate need to grow the discipline of women’s health research to overcome the concerning gaps in knowledge that jeopardize women’s health. Please donate today to catalyze women’s health research worldwide. Your gift will support:  

  • Publications, education and academic opportunities that will enable groundbreaking knowledge translation to help transform women’s health on a global scale
  • Vital advocacy efforts to change the policies and practices that are impeding women’s health research

Happy International Day of Action for Women’s Health 2024

May 28 is International Day of Action for Womens’ Health. This day was first observed in 1987, and aims to advocate for women’s reproductive rights, highlight healthcare disparities faced by women, raise awareness about gender-based violence, and promote sexual health and rights. 

The Women’s Health Research Cluster is committed to empowering and advancing women’s health research. To honor the International Day of Action for Women’s Health, we are celebrating the strides the Cluster and its members have taken to advocate for the funding, prioritization, and advancement of women’s health research. Small actions together can make a significant difference by raising awareness and driving policy changes, and we encourage individuals from all walks of life to make their own meaningful contributions to this movement! 

Learn more about our advocacy work and find ideas on how you can get involved in our blog post.

Behind the Science: Stroke and Health Inequities in Women

Interviewee: Ismália De Sousa, PhD Candidate, Registered Nurse, University of British Columbia, School of Nursing. Authors/Editors: Romina Garcia de leon, Shayda Swann (Blog Co-coordinators).

Published: August 4th, 2023

Could you tell us more about your research?

My Ph.D. research is a two-phase project. The first part is a literature review of health inequities in stroke care. The second phase is a qualitative study exploring the experiences of young women with stroke history in British Columbia, with an equity-oriented lens. In particular, I am interested in how intersecting systems of structured inequity (e.g., racism, sexism, and other isms) influence their experiences accessing healthcare. 

What drove you to study the experience of stroke in young women?

I’ve been a registered nurse for 14 years. In my career as a registered nurse, I specialized in stroke care. For this reason, I have developed a clear understanding of the complexities of the care of stroke survivors. There have been significant advances in stroke care but in the last 20 years, the focus has been on the acute stroke phase (those immediate hours to days after the stroke) and not so much on the rehabilitation and recovery phase. This poses a gap in stroke research. Another component is that people often think strokes occur only in older people, but this is not true. Stroke rates are increasing among younger people. Moreover, there are sex and gender differences in the incidence of stroke and stroke outcomes. For example, pregnancy and menopause confer a higher risk of stroke and women have greater disability and poorer health-related quality of life. And all of this can be exacerbated by health inequities, the unjust, unfair, and avoidable health differences. So we really need to know better the experiences of young women who have had a stroke, how these health inequities manifest in their experiences during stroke rehabilitation and recovery, access to healthcare, and so forth.

What impact do you hope to see with this work? 

I really hope that my findings can influence health policy or can inform health policy and clinical practices and the development of equitable practices in stroke care in British Columbia. I also think that this work can inform national strategies and resource allocation for neurorehabilitation. The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada has a big emphasis on women’s health and the invisible and inequitable effects on women (and I would recommend reading their recent report). And the World Health Organization (WHO) recently released a position paper asking countries to prioritize brain health and reduce the stigma, impact, and burden of neurological disorders, since strokes are a neurological condition with significant burden for stroke survivors, their families, and caregivers.

Are there other projects you are currently working on? 

Another project I worked on looks at the History of Black nurses in British Columbia, between 1845 and 1910. This is important because we need to reflect on the invisibility of Blackness and Black nurses in British Columbia but also to understand how some of our current-day issues, such as the lack of representation of Black nurses in senior leadership positions, can be linked to historical events such as colonialism and chattel slavery and the ideas and thinking that shaped that period in our history. This work is about what has happened in the past, and how it has a trickle-down effect on where we are today. The specific time that I looked at, an important historical juncture for nursing, was the beginning of the professionalization of nursing, with the development of nursing schools. This meant that to be a nurse you needed to be trained within a nursing school, but not everyone could be a nurse. Because of the ideas that were prevalent during chattel slavery and colonialism, Black people were continuously stereotyped as less intelligent and lazy, and I think this then has a trickle effect in preventing Black nurses from being accepted into nursing schools.

I’ve also recently conducted research looking at student nurses’ perceptions of educational strategies that promote critical awareness and engagement with social justice. Promoting health equity is a professional mandate in nursing, but how do we enact a social justice pedagogy in the classrooms? Together with faculty in the UBC School of Nursing, I interviewed nursing students to understand how they see social justice and what educational strategies should be used or have been used that promote critical awareness and engagement with social justice and positively influence their professional practice as registered nurses. We are yet to publish the findings of this work.

Where can people learn more about your work? 

Find more about what I do on my website where you can see my publications and other projects I’m working on. Find Ismália on Twitter at @Ismalia_S.

How Can Canada Improve Access to Abortion Care?

Author: Martha Paynter, RN PhD, Assistant Professor in The Faculty of Nursing at the University of New Brunswick

Authors/Editors: Romina Garcia de leon, Shayda Swann (Blog Co-coordinators).

Published: March 24, 2023

As an abortion care provider in Canada, I feel deep solidarity with colleagues south of the border and terror for their patients after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that the U.S. Constitution afforded protection to the right to abortion. Individual states now may ban abortion outright — and several already have.

Abortion care affirms the dignity and autonomy of patients and translates into not only physical and mental health but also opportunity for education, employment, safety from violence, and parenting wanted children.

Providers and policymakers in Canada can and must respond to U.S. abortion bans by expanding access to care here.

In Canada, abortion is completely decriminalized and, as health care, is no more governed by criminal law than knee surgery or intravenous antibiotics. There are no legal limits on gestational age,  mandatory waiting periods, or  requirements that youth seek parental consent.

Abortion in Canada is publicly funded like most medical services, with a few exceptions. And since 2017, all primary care providers, including family physicians and nurse practitioners, have been authorized (except in Québec) to prescribe mifepristone for medication abortion, which is drug-induced rather than surgical.

Because abortion case is not governed by law in Canada, politicians cannot lobby for reforms to limit access. There is no law that providers must tiptoe around to avoid prosecution.

In the past seven years, logistical access to abortion in Canada has improved significantly:

Even COVID-19 protections resulted in care expansion: as providers became more familiar with telemedicine, many felt comfortable moving to “no touch” or “low touch” medication abortion prescribing, without requiring blood work or ultrasound.

Because pandemic inter-provincial travel restrictions limited the ability to refer patients elsewhere if they were past local gestational age caps, hospitals in several provinces made the necessary infrastructural and training adjustments to extend the gestational ages to which they would provide care.

But serious limits on abortion access in Canada remain. This is a huge country, and people living in rural, remote and underserved areas face enormous travel burdens to access care.

These burdens are greatest for people facing poverty, intimate partner violence and racism from the health-care system. And access challenges may be greater if we suddenly see an influx of demand from U.S. patients.

Because health care is administered at the provincial/territorial level, access and medical practices among the provinces/territories vary widely, and unjustly. This is the case for all kinds of health care — but abortion is basic and common care, not neurosurgery.

Consider how there are 49 (surgical) abortion sites in Québec — by far the highest number of access points — but Québec has the lowest rate of uptake of abortion medication because of rigid requirements about prescribing authority. Meanwhile, although there is only one surgical abortion site in P.E.I., where more than half of abortions are through medication.

In Newfoundland, 95 per cent of (publicly funded) surgical abortion takes place at the freestanding family practice clinic, Athena. Yet New Brunswick has kept a perverse piece of legislation on the books for decades, 84-20 Schedule 2 a.1 of the Medical Services Payment Act, denying public insurance for surgical abortion outside of a hospital building.

One in three people in Canada with a uterus will have an abortion in their lifetime. The arrangements for care should not be so convoluted and unequal.

There will undoubtedly be escalating rhetoric from anti-choice politicians in the wake of the fall of Roe. Now is the time to leap forward in terms of access. Health-care providers, policymakers, activists and everyone in Canada can channel our horror into meaningful and specific actions to enthusiastically expand abortion services.

  1. We need to ensure all medical and nursing schools include robust abortion components in their curricula to increase provider knowledge, competence and confidence with abortion care and reduce geographic disparities.
  2. Nurse practitioners and midwives should be authorized not only to prescribe abortion medication but to perform aspiration (surgical) abortion. Québec must get on board with welcoming primary care providers as medication abortion prescribers.
  3. We should nurture abortion provider networks for mentorship and support, to improve confident uptake of no-touch mifepristone prescribing and availability of abortion in rural, remote and underserved communities.
  4. We must have universal coverage for contraception for everyone, and explore offering contraception and mifepristone over the counter, as we do with Plan B.
  5. We must make sure every person understands how abortion care works here, normalize it as a health service, and resist any attempt to bind it up in a law that could someday be altered or taken away.

Poverty, stigma, racism and gender violence are barriers to abortion in Canada. If we are worried about threats to access, these are what we need to fight.

This article was originally published on Impact Ethics and has been republished here with permission from the author.

Behind the Science: Investigating Maternal Nutrition and Preeclampsia in Low Income Settings

Interviewee: Maggie Woo Kinshella, PhD candidate, University of British Columbia. Authors/Editors: Romina Garcia de leon, Shayda Swann (Blog Co-coordinator).

Published: December 16th, 2022 

Could you briefly explain what your research is?

My PhD research is looking at the relationship between the food that women eat during pregnancy and our risk of developing preeclampsia, which is a serious condition during pregnancy characterized by high blood pressure in the second half of gestation alongside signs of maternal organ damage, especially in the liver and kidneys. My research is particularly looking at this relationship in Sub-Saharan Africa, where there’s a disproportionate burden of maternal deaths, as well as higher prevalence of malnutrition. 

This work is within the PRECISE Network, which is a large prospective pregnancy cohort in three countries in Sub Saharan Africa, Kenya, The Gambia and Mozambique, to give us an idea of what’s happening in East Africa, West Africa, and South Africa. The overall goal is to do research on placental conditions – including preeclampsia – in Sub-Saharan Africa, as most of the research has been done in high income settings like Canada, the United States, or the UK, where pathways of risk may be different. It’s really trying to look at within these resource limited settings, whether there are different pathways, such as a higher prevalence of malnutrition.

The research uses mixed methods, which I’m super excited about. There’s a quantitative component using the PRECISE Network surveys where they asked women about their medical history and socio-demographics, as well as did a dietary diversity score, which is the number of food groups that the woman eat in the past 24 hours. I’m going to be looking at whether a woman’s dietary diversity is linked to developing pregnancy hypertension.

I also did qualitative community-based research in each of the three countries, it was really neat! I was able to go to the three countries and it was so wonderful to be able to work with the local staff. For over a month in each country, I did focused ethnography, where we did participant observation and shadowed pregnant women and recently-delivered mothers throughout the whole day to understand where they’re getting their food, how they’re cooking it. and how they’re eating it. We also did interviews with women, as well as their male relatives, other female relatives, and community leaders.

Then we did photovoice, which is a really interesting participatory research activity that involves giving cameras to women, and they took pictures of how they made the food, where they got the food from, as well as barriers and facilitators. We then printed out the photos and we had a discussion about them afterwards. 

What led you to become interested in this women’s health issue with the maternal diet and hypertension?

I’m taking a human rights approach to health in my PhD. Really early on, looking at this research, I realized there was a there was a there was a systemic neglect of women’s health within maternal diet research.

The Safe Motherhood Initiative is really momentous in getting people to think more about maternal mortality, because they realized that there was this “measurement trap”. Maternal and child interventions ended up having a bigger benefit on child health and assuming that that would spill over into women’s health. However, that wasn’t reducing maternal mortality rates, because that reducing maternal mortality rates requires explicit interventions on facility maternity care, for example. They call this a “measurement trap” because these indicators of women’s health are systematically neglected. Similarly, nutrition programs are often intervening with pregnant women, and within mothers with small children, but they’re measuring the outcome in child growth. So, you’re intervening with the women, but you’re not measuring the outcomes in women. I think  that is a very systematic neglect and an injustice.

For example, there’s a lot of research out there are multiple micronutrients, so multivitamins, and they never measure preeclampsia as an outcome. They hardly even measure maternal mortality. It’s always low birth weights and other outcomes like that, which I think is a huge missed opportunity to look at some of these maternal indicators.

Why do you think it’s important to study women’s health?

Women are often seen in the lens of reproduction, which can be a big part of identity and things like that. However, it’s looking at women as instrumental that exploits gender norms and stereotypes, rather than being empowering. I think you cannot have community empowerment if women are systematically neglected and you can’t have women’s empowerment without our health and you can’t have health without food. I think looking at food is really fundamental. 

It seems you have been involved in a lot of community work, can you tell us a bit more about what you’ve accomplished outside of academia?

I think it’s really important to ground our academic work in terms of how it’s applied or to have an idea of how things actually are on the ground. I’ve been involved in a small NGO in Western Africa that worked with household health and gender equality projects. We had a program to raise awareness and have a community resource center to prevent sex- and gender-based violence in a small community in Western Kenya. We also had a women’s health education program. With this program, we did some fundraisers that included kayaking from Vancouver up to Alaska to raise money and awareness, as well as we cycled from Vancouver all the way down to Argentina, which was really amazing.

I’ve also spent some time in Ethiopia. I was a volunteer there as a  technical adviser on reproductive, maternal and child health communications and health promotion for the Benishangul Gumuz regional Health Bureau. I was working on was helping them reinvigorate their health promotion and health education program, particularly around understanding perspectives of the major Indigenous groups in the area.

I’ve also done some work in the Downtown Eastside, as a frontline mental health worker in various housing, treatment, and detox facilities, as well as doing community-based research there. I was a freelance research consultant, working with different organizations on issues that came up during clinical work that they wanted some more clarification and understanding about.

What impact do you hope to see with your work years from now?

I’m hoping to be a part of this paradigm shift to value and measure women’s health indicators.I think this neglect is systemic. As people kind of realize that, “Oh, wow. We didn’t measure this before”, hopefully, that builds momentum with more groups measuring it, focusing on it more, and realizing different areas where there might be a systemic neglect.

Overall, I really hope that this research, depending on the findings, is able to speak to the relationships between maternal diet and maternal health and hopefully support meaningful and appropriate prevention and interventions. 

Where can people find out more about your work and what you do?

You can find me on Twitter @MaggieWooK  or on our website. You can also email me at maggie.kinshella@cw.bc.ca

 

How Oppression in Iran Impacts Women’s Health

 

Authors: Shayda Swann, MD/PhD Candidate, University of British Columbia & Bahareh Azadi, Graduate Student, University of British Columbia

Editor: Negin (Events & Communications Specialist), Romina Garcia de leon (Blog Coordinator).

Publication date: Oct 7th, 2022

In light of the recent death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, while detained by Iran’s “morality police”, we sought to explore and expose the impacts of oppression in Iran on women’s health. While we could consider this issue from many vantages, we focus here on how systemic oppression impacts women’s reproductive and mental health. 

Before delving into the topic, we felt it critical to declare our positionality. Shayda is an Iranian-White MD/PhD student whose research involves women’s sexual and reproductive health. Shayda has never lived in Iran but feels a deep attachment to the country where her family originated and escaped religious persecution as members of the Baha’i Faith. 

Bahareh is an Iranian graduate student and health researcher who lived in Iran until the age of 14 before immigrating with her family to Canada in pursuit of a better future. Since immigrating, Bahareh has frequently visited Iran as a young woman where she has had several encounters with the “morality police” and has experienced first-hand the consequences of the oppressive norms of the regime. 

Impact on women’s sexual and reproductive health

Sexual and reproductive health refers to upholding rights and freedoms concerning body autonomy, reproductive choice, prevention of sexually transmitted infections, menstrual hygiene, and various other aspects of women’s lives.

A 2015 report by Amnesty International points to numerous ways in which oppression in Iran limits women’s sexual/reproductive health. Before 2012, Iran’s Family and Population Planning program met several successes, including reducing the fertility rate from 6.5 to 1.6 births per woman between 1976-2012. This program was cut in 2012, accompanied by statements from high-ranking officials that contraception should only be used with consent from the husband, thus limiting women’s autonomy. These changes, unsurprisingly, were accompanied by an increase in sexually transmitted infections among women, with a 550% increase in the prevalence of HIV from 2007 to 2015. 

In 2021, women’s reproductive choices were further restricted by the “rejuvenation of the population and support of family” bill, which severely limits women’s access to contraception. The bill further mandates the creation of materials that denounce contraception and abortion, while encouraging women to have more children. Policies such as this violate women’s body autonomy and reproductive rights, put them at higher risk for unsafe pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, and limit their educational and occupational opportunities; therefore, these policies compound the socio-structural barriers faced by Iranian women.

Menstrual education is another important aspect of women’s reproductive health. A 2018 review found “weak knowledge” about reproductive physiology and menstrual health among Iranian girls, attributing this to sociocultural and political barriers that limit reproductive health education. Importantly, one study found that only 26% of adolescent girls report receiving adequate information about puberty.

Another study emphasized how shame and anxiety shape young women’s experience of menstruation in Iran. Shockingly, a study investigating knowledge about menstrual health among girls found that less than half (41.2%) of participants considered menstruation to be a normal physiological process, and only 1.6% had “good knowledge” about menstrual hygiene. These studies underscore a concerning lack of education and understanding of menstruation, which is likely perpetuated by culturally-rooted shame and lack of political will to incorporate this into public education, thus depriving young girls of the necessary information about their bodies.

Women’s reproductive health is further threatened by the country’s marriage laws. The legal age of marriage for girls in Iran is thirteen-years-old, or younger if allowed by the court, compared to age fifteen for boys. Child marriage is not only legal in Iran, but is tacitly encouraged through government loans, with rates of child marriage rising drastically since the introduction of these loans. In the first half of 2021, more than 16,000 Iranian girls between the ages of ten and fourteen were married. This unquestionably leads to younger pregnancy ages – which increases the risk for complications, fetal illness, and maternal mortality – along with violence and reduced educational/employment opportunities. We concur with statements by the United Nations that child marriage is a human rights violation and “can lead to a lifetime of suffering”. These are but a few examples of how oppressive and discriminatory policies threaten the health of Iranian women and girls.

Impact on women’s mental health

Mental health is defined as emotional, psychological, and social well-being. State of mind affects many aspects of life, including how people think, feel, act, deal with adversity, relate to others, and make decisions. Women living in countries affected by war and political instability have a higher risk of developing mental health disorders than men. 

A 2014 study reported that more than 25% (as high as 36% in the capital, Tehran) of Iranian women suffer from mental disorders. Iranian women are particularly vulnerable to experiencing mental health disorders due to social and cultural factors, including being of lower overall social standing, having inferior rights, and being subject to strict laws that dictate their everyday lives. They are treated as ‘second-class’ citizens and live in a patriarchal society with male-dominated attitudes and discriminatory laws that impose restrictions on their rights and personal liberties, such as laws that require women to cover their body with loose-fitting clothing and cover their hair with hijab from the age of nine-years-old. 

This law is enforced by the “morality police” and authorities have long detained, fined, and jailed thousands of women for “improper hijab.” Those who resist detention are brutally beaten. Iranian women are left to constantly assess their performance against gender norms and strict laws; being subject to this constant scrutiny renders them unable to attend to more important issues that affect their lives (Figure 1). 

 

Figure 1: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.

Another factor that greatly contributes to the vulnerability of Iranian women to mental health disorders is related to discriminatory labor laws and regulations that limit the financial freedom of women and their participation in the job market. 

The link between financial standing and mental health comes as no surprise. Financial instability is a major cause of stress and contributes to mental health challenges. Women who experience financial instability are at a higher risk for developing mental health disorders, such as anxiety and depression. According to a report released by the Statistical Center of Iran in 2015, although women make up over 50% of university graduates, their participation in the job market is as low as 17%. 

This is a direct consequence of domestic laws that limit women’s access to employment, in addition to placing restrictions on the types of professions that women can participate in. Further, Iranian law grants men the authority to prevent their wives from obtaining employment, and some employers go as far as to require consent from a woman’s husband. Thus, it is not surprising that the chronic exposure of Iranian women to societal pressures and their continued struggle for basic rights places them at higher risk for developing mental health disorders. 

Conclusion

Here, we chose to highlight only two of the many ways that women’s health is jeopardized by oppressive social and political circumstances in Iran. As Iranian women in health research, we felt compelled to highlight these issues, with the hopes of drawing greater awareness to these inequitable and unjust circumstances. We stand in solidarity with the women of Iran as they fight for freedom.

 

Behind the Science: Racializied Women’s Physical Pain Dismissal


Interviewee: Negin Nia, B.A., M.J., University of British Columbia, Author/Editor: Romina Garcia de leon (Blog Co-coordinator).

Published: June 17th, 2022

In this week’s Behind the Science, we highlight work done by our current Blog Co-Coordinator at the Women’s Health Research Cluster (WHRC), Negin Nia. She is a recent Master’s graduate from the UBC School of Journalism who specialized in public health. Negin’s final research project in the program sought to examine the intersection between women’s physical pain, race, and treatment in North America’s hospitals and beyond.

Negin did not only complete a literature review but also released an audio documentary covering the lived experiences of racialized women. Her podcast was recently awarded the 2022 Radio Television Digital News Foundation JJ Richards Award. Read more about her project and the lived experience that drove this work. 

Can you please tell me about the work you have done during your Master of Journalism degree? 

For the last year in my program, I decided to focus my journalism specialization on health reporting. This work was driven by my lived experience but also because I believe health impacts every aspect of our lives. 

I did my final research project, which was a combination of a literature review, and an audio documentary on women’s physical pain, race and treatment. There is a lot of research that shows that women, especially racialized women, experience a heightened degree of discrimination, stigma and dismissal of their physical pain because of stereotypes and biases. This is particularly striking as women already experience more chronic pain than men. 

So, the audio documentary explores the lived experiences of many women, including my own story surrounding physical pain, race and accessing treatment across North America’s health care systems. And then the final literature review was more of a deep dive into why this is happening. It included the research in the statistics, whereas the audio documentary was more testimony with facts — they complement each other well.

What led you to pursue this work in the field of health? 

Back in 2020, I had to undergo open-heart surgery for a benign heart condition that I have had my whole life. The situation caught me by surprise because I was an outwardly healthy, 22-year-old. But I had been having a lot of heart palpitations during that year and the doctors kept telling me it was just my anxiety. 

Finally, I got referred to a cardiologist who took such great care of me and took my pain seriously. He scheduled me for an MRI, which is an uncommon test to run for my condition. Usually, it’s an echo scan. The MRI showed more than the echo scan did, that my heart condition had all of a sudden become severe with no explanation. I underwent surgery as soon as possible. 

That experience was super scary and shocking, but I have come out of it a lot stronger — it taught me so much. And just being in the hospital that week, and talking to other people who have been dealing with chronic health issues, really opened up my eyes to the disproportionate dismissal that women, people of color, and non-binary folk face in the healthcare system. 

Do you incorporate the knowledge you gained from your undergraduate degree into what you do now? 

I did my undergraduate degree at UBC in political science and law, and it taught me how to develop my writing skills. I also focused a lot on health policy during my degree. I originally wanted to become a lawyer, but after I started writing for the school newspaper, I realized that I love writing and journalism. 

That degree equipped me for a lot of what I’m doing now in my work at the WHRC, and it also gave me the skills to pursue my master’s degree and the work that has come from it. 

What are your next steps, and long-term goals? 

I’m very interested in pursuing work that’s meaningful, similar to what I did in my podcast. I enjoyed the aspect of sharing stories and highlighting the voices of marginalized and racialized groups — which is my passion. I think that it’s really important to do something you’re passionate about because it shines through your work. 

I’m also currently working at the Women’s Health Research cluster as a Blog Co-Coordinator, which has been amazing because it’s so enriching. Every week when we post blogs, there’s a new topic and I’m constantly learning about women’s health issues and people doing amazing work in the health field. 

How can people reach you and know more about your work?

My Twitter handle is @_neginnia. My podcast is titled “Let’s Talk About: Women’s Physical Pain, Race & Treatment,” and you can find it on Spotify.

Are All Women in Canada Really Free to Choose?


Author: Kennadie Chaudhary, AccessBC Campaign Coordinator | Editors: Alex Lukey and Arrthy Thayaparan (Blog Coordinators) 

Published: February 26th, 2021

Access to contraception, as a reproductive right, is a basic human right. However, many Canadians are unable to exercise this right for a variety of reasons. One of these reasons is the significant barrier of cost. People who can get pregnant are disproportionately affected by the often high costs of contraception. These costs can include between $75 and $380 for an intrauterine device (IUD), $20 per month for oral contraceptives, and up to $180 per year for a hormone injection. Lack of coverage for contraception means youth, people with low-income, and those from marginalized communities face a severe disadvantage when making choices about their bodies. Thus, acknowledging the factor of cost is essential to making universal access to contraception a reality. 

There are numerous benefits to accessible contraception, which are evident in studies in North America and around the world. In Canada, the cost of contraception is almost entirely the responsibility of the user, with few exceptions. This is in contrast to several countries which similarly have universal health care, but have chosen to subsidize prescription contraception, either in full or in part. Countries with universal healthcare that subsidize contraception include over 11 members of the European Union, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Countries with universal access to prescription contraception have recognized the social and public health benefits of doing so, and their programs are often revenue positive. A 2015 study in the Canadian Association Medical Journal​ estimated that the cost of delivering universal contraception across Canada would be $157 million. Yet, the savings for direct medical costs of unintended pregnancies alone would be approximately $320 million. 

A Colorado program offering free IUDs to young people saw a 54% reduction in teen pregnancies and a 64% decline in teen abortion rates over eight years. The program came to a cost of $28 million, saving the US government an estimated $70 million. In Canada, about 59,000 adolescent pregnancies per year are unintended. Studies such as the Colorado program show the immense impact that access to contraception can have. Unintended pregnancies are expensive and can significantly alter an individual’s life plans. Further, reducing unintended pregnancies and allowing women to properly space births by providing them with access to contraception prevents over 200,000 maternal deaths worldwide each year.

Access to contraception is not only an issue of health. Contraception is also an issue of gender equality. While condoms are often easily accessible at little or no cost and vasectomies are covered under provincial health insurance plans, people with uteruses face significant barriers to autonomous contraception due to cost and requiring a prescription. Advancing gender equality requires recognizing that the costs of prescription contraception should not disproportionately fall on women alone. Women’s right to decide if and when they want to get pregnant should not be based on what they can afford. The ability to make that decision freely will contribute to the status of women, their right to health, and their empowerment as decision-makers.

AccessBC is a province-wide campaign that advocates for universal no-cost prescription contraception in British Columbia. AccessBC is currently running a letter writing campaign to urge the BC Government to include this policy in the upcoming 2021 budget. You can learn more about AccessBC, the need for, and benefits of, making all prescription contraception universally available at no cost, at www.accessbc.org.

Photo by Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition on Unsplash

Women’s Health in Review: 2020

Authors: Arrthy Thayaparan and Alex Lukey (Blog Coordinators)

Published: January 15th, 2021

With the dawn of a new year, many are hoping to move past the tumultuous events of 2020. But who can blame them? 2020 will be memorialized in future history books as the year the world came crashing down. In particular, women felt the strain with increases in domestic violence and economic consequences disproportionate to men. For much of the past year, the news and social media painted a grim picture of the world. So it begs to question, did anything good happen in 2020? Is there hope that 2021 will be any better?

In fact, there were many triumphs in women’s rights and health in 2020. While 2020 was a year of unprecedented challenges, the year also highlighted the resilience of women across the globe. Below, we’ve highlighted several successes in 2020 worth celebrating as we begin the new year. 

Argentina legalizes abortion

After 12 hours of debate and tension, Argentina’s Senate voted and legalized abortion. Historically seen as a conservative region, this decision is a major victory for women and activists fighting for the right. It is believed that hundreds of thousands of underground abortions are performed in Argentina every year. The new abortion laws would legalize the procedure and ensure safe practices for women choosing to undergo it. The arrival of these new laws also brings hope for surrounding Latin American countries, in the desire that they will follow suit and also legalize the procedure. 

Pakistan banned virginity tests

A few weeks ago, the high court of Lahore, Pakistan outlawed the use of virginity tests on female rape survivors. Justice Ayesha Malik stated that invasive tests had no legal basis or medical requirement for them to be carried out. Additionally, the practice was deemed a humiliating offense on victims with dangerous potential to re-traumatize them. While the judgement will only apply in the state of Pubjab, it was nevertheless a historic moment for Pakistani activists and the feminist movement. 

25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration on women’s rights

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women, which set a historic agenda for women’s rights. At this conference, over 30,000 activists and representatives from 189 countries adopted a declaration and platform to oversee the equal rights and opportunities of all women. However, other than celebrating this historic event, the anniversary is a wake-up call for countries committed to the declaration. No country has fully delivered or is close to the 2020 goals envisioned by the conference. With COVID-19 exacerbating inequalities and risks for women, it becomes even more essential to continue pushing for women’s rights and women’s health in the coming years. As Hillary Clinton so rightly phrased at this very conference 25 years ago, “Women’s rights are human rights, and human rights are women’s rights.”

Two women scientists awarded Nobel prize in chemistry

Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna were awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in chemistry for their work on gene-editing technology. Their tool, known as CRISPR-Cas9, has already had encouraging results in experimental treatments for sickle cell disease. The women mark the eighth and ninth women to ever receive this award since 1901. Despite previous history of women receiving the honour, Charpentier and Doudna make history as the first all-female winners for the Nobel’s chemistry stream. 

Vast improvements of sex inclusion in biological studies

Since the 1990s, the limitation of sex-biased studies and the need for the inclusion of females has been highlighted in research. A 2009 report by Beery and Zucker further highlighted sex-inclusive practices and policies that could mitigate biases and prompted the United States National Institutes of Health to implement a policy that required researchers to consider sex as a biological variable. The policy was intended to ensure equal representation of males and females in studies but received backlash by those who saw the change as unnecessary, time consuming, costly, and complicated. Now over ten years later, a follow-up study has found that the policy has significantly helped in increasing the number of sex-inclusive studies across most biological fields. While much work is still required, there is hope that the scientific community is aware and starting to understand the need for sex-inclusive research. 

Ground-breaking mRNA research is foundation to COVID-19 vaccine

Dr. Katalin Karikó is one of the co-developers of a method that utilizes synthetic mRNA to fight disease. Her discovery is now the foundation of the COVID-19 vaccine. But her story hasn’t been an easy one. After leaving her native Hungary in 1985, Karikó became a researcher at Philadelphia’s Temple University and later at University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine. For years she attempted to gain funding for mRNA research, which was deemed too financially risky to fund. She was later demoted from her position at UPenn and underwent a hard battle with cancer, but Karikó stayed true to her ideas. Eventually, she was able to make her discovery, alongside former UPenn colleague Drew Weissman, and is finally receiving recognition for her work. 

Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine brings hope

Dr. Sarah Gilbert is a Professor of Vaccinology at the University of Oxford, who has recently made waves in the world with her team’s Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. Interim data showed that the highly effective vaccine provides 70% protection from COVID-19, but some believe that slight alterations can lead up to 90% protection. Dr. Gilbert’s team has been working to create vaccines for Ebola and MERS for several years. As such, their expertise with these viruses enabled them to design a COVID-19 vaccine soon after Chinese scientists had published the genetic structure of the virus. 

Moving forward into 2021

Without question, the events of 2020 disproportionately impacted women. The stories and events we’ve highlighted here are evidence of women’s determination to advance despite adversity.  While 2021 will undoubtedly bring many more challenges, as shown here, these writers are confident that women will continue to rise to the occasion.