by Akemi Tamanaha
Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities in Georgia say they’ve experienced bias and disrespect from reproductive healthcare providers. They also say they face stigma when discussing sexual and reproductive healthcare in their communities.
A study conducted by the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum in partnership with Emory University’s Center for Reproductive Health Research in the Southeast (RISE) examined the different barriers AANHPI communities face in accessing sexual and reproductive healthcare.
The study found that 83% of respondents had a regular reproductive healthcare provider. However, 63% of respondents said that they perceived unfair or disrespectful treatment by reproductive healthcare professionals.
“That includes everything from invalidating statements, dismissive statements, really not feeling heard by their providers, like not receiving explanations about the kind of care that they were getting, or that they wanted to get,” Fajer Saeed Ebrahim, the Senior Policy Manager at NAPAWF, said in an interview with AsAmNews.
Judgement and unfairness from healthcare providers isn’t the only issue surrounding sexual and reproductive healthcare for AANHPI people in Georgia. The study also examined the pressures those people face in their own communities.
Saeed Ebrahim called attention to one data point in particular: only around 11% of respondents listed family as a primary source of information for sexual and reproductive healthcare.
“And what this highlights is that we need better community-based support systems to bridge these gaps in education and trust,” she said.
In some cases, stigma was greater within different communities than it was in a healthcare office. Only 4% of respondents said they felt “pressured to use contraception, judged when seeking birth control information, or judged for not desiring birth control from doctors, nurses, or counselors.”
However, a majority of respondents said they experienced pressure or judgment from non-medical sources. Saeed Ebrahim noted that there is still cultural stigma surrounding sexual and reproductive health in some communities.
“We’re not a monolith, I don’t want to say, you know, every community in our population, but a lot of communities still face that as a barrier, and so they really articulated a need for a sort of resource that they can turn to, that would meet them where they’re at,” she said.
Support our June Membership Drive and receive member-only benefits. With less than three days left in our fundraising drive, we are running out of time. We are just 57% of our goal of $10,000 in new donations and monthly and annual donation pledges and 48% of our goal of gaining 25 new recurring donors by the end of the month. We need your help during these challenging times. Please help to ensure quality content in amplifying the voices of the AAPI community.
We are published by the non-profit Asian American Media Inc and supported by our readers along with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, AARP, Report for America/GroundTruth Project & Koo and Patricia Yuen of the Yuen Foundation.
You can make your tax-deductible donations here via credit card, debit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal and Venmo. Stock donations and donations via DAFs are also welcomed. Contact us at info @ asamnews dot com for more info.
