Relationships to land as a determinant of wellness for Indigenous women, two-spirit, trans, and gender diverse people of reproductive age in Toronto, Canada.

OBJECTIVE: Disparities in Indigenous reproductive health reflect Canada's historic and ongoing colonial relationship with Indigenous peoples, which includes persistent inequities in health and social services. Reproductive justice scholars and activists advocate for intersectional approaches to enhancing Indigenous health equity that recognize land as a central determinant of wellness. The purpose of this study is to examine the association between relationships to land and wellness in a study of urban Indigenous women, two-spirit, trans, and gender diverse people of reproductive age in Canada's largest city, Toronto. METHODS: Data were obtained from the cross-sectional Our Health Counts (OHC) Toronto study, which employed respondent-driven sampling methods (n = 323) and a community-directed comprehensive health assessment survey. In an exploratory analysis, we took an Indigenous reproductive justice theoretical approach to multivariable logistic regression. RESULTS: After adjusting for covariates, there was a statistically significant positive association between relationships to the land and wellness that was estimated with good precision (OR 3.7, 95% CI 2.5-5.3). CONCLUSION: Our findings indicate that among urban Indigenous women, two-spirit, trans, and gender diverse people of reproductive age there is a positive association between feeling strong in their relationships to land and feeling balanced in the four domains of health (physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional). The community-based, community-directed design of OHC Toronto was congruent with a reproductive justice approach to research. Reproductive justice theories are adaptable to quantitative research on Indigenous reproductive health and can yield novel insights for supporting Indigenous wellness.

RéSUMé: OBJECTIF: Les disparités que connaissent les peuples autochtones sur le plan de la santé reproductive sont le reflet des relations coloniales historiques et continues du Canada avec ces peuples, encore entachées d'iniquités dans les domaines de la santé et des services sociaux. Théoricien·nes et militant·es de la justice reproductive préconisent des approches intersectionnelles pour améliorer l'équité en santé chez les peuples autochtones, approches qui reconnaissent le territoire comme un déterminant central du bien-être. Nous avons voulu examiner l'association entre les relations avec le territoire et le bien-être dans une étude menée auprès de femmes et de personnes autochtones bispirituelles, trans et de diverses identités de genre en âge de procréer vivant à Toronto, la plus grande ville du Canada. MéTHODE: Nos données proviennent de l'étude transversale Our Health Counts (OHC) Toronto, qui a employé des méthodes d'échantillonnage en fonction des répondant·es (n = 323) et une enquête d'évaluation globale de la santé dirigée par la communauté. Dans une analyse exploratoire, nous avons employé la régression logistique multivariée selon une approche théorique de justice reproductive autochtone. RéSULTATS: Après l'apport d'ajustements pour tenir compte des covariables, nous avons observé une association positive significative entre les relations avec le territoire et le bien-être, que nous avons estimée avec une bonne précision (RC 3,7, IC de 95 % 2,5­5,3). CONCLUSION: D'après nos constatations, il y a chez les femmes et les personnes autochtones bispirituelles, trans et de diverses identités de genre en âge de procréer vivant en milieu urbain une association positive entre un fort sentiment d'appartenance au territoire et un sentiment d'équilibre entre les quatre domaines de la santé (physique, spirituel, mental et émotionnel). L'étude OHC Toronto ayant été conçue par et pour la communauté, elle est conforme à une approche de recherche axée sur la justice reproductive. Les théories de la justice reproductive peuvent être adaptées à la recherche quantitative sur la santé reproductive autochtone, et elles peuvent jeter un nouvel éclairage sur les moyens d'appuyer le bien-être des personnes autochtones.

Facilitating equitable community-level access to maternal health services: exploring the experiences of Rwanda's community health workers.

BACKGROUND: In Rwanda, community health workers (CHWs) are an integral part of the health system. For maternal health, CHWs are involved in linking members of the communities in which they live to the formal health care system to address preventative, routine, and acute maternal care needs. Drawing on the findings from in-depth interviews with maternal health CHWs and observational insights in ten Rwandan districts, we identify specific strategies CHWs employ to provide equitable maternal care while operating in a low resource setting. METHODS: Using case study methodology approach, we conducted interviews with 22 maternal health CHWs to understand the nature of their roles in facilitating equitable access to maternal care in Rwanda at the community level. Interviews were conducted in five Rwandan districts. Participants shared their experiences of and perceptions on promoting equitable access to maternal health service in their communities. RESULTS: Four key themes emerged during the analytic process that characterize the contexts and strategic ways in which maternal health CHWs facilitate equitable access to maternal care in an environment of resource scarcity. They are: 1) community building; 2) physical landscapes, which serve as barriers or facilitators both to women's care access and CHWs' equitable service provision; 3) the post-crisis socio-political environment in Rwanda, which highlights resilience and the need to promote maternal health subsequent to the genocide of 1994; and, 4) the strategies used by CHWs to circumvent the constraints of a resource-poor setting and provide equitable maternal health services at the community level. CONCLUSION: Rwanda's maternal CHWs are heavily responsible for promoting equitable access to maternal health services. Consequently, they may be required to use their own resources for their practice, which could jeopardize their own socio-economic welfare and capacity to meet the demands of their families. Considering the unpaid and untrained nature of this position, we highlight the factors that threaten the sustainability of CHWs' role to facilitate equitable access to maternal care. These threats introduce turbulence into what is a relatively successful community-level health care initiative.

"A Two Glass of Wine Shift": Dominant Discourses and the Social Organization of Nurses' Substance Use.

We undertook an institutional ethnography utilizing the expert knowledge of nurses who have experienced substance-use problems to discover: (a) What are the discourses embedded in the talk among nurses in their everyday work worlds that socially organize their substance-use practices and (b) how do those discourses manage these activities? Data collection included interviews, researcher reflexivity, and texts that were critically analyzed with a focus on institutional features. Analysis revealed dominant moralistic and individuated discourses in nurses' workplace talk that socially organized their substance-use practices, subordinated and silenced experiences of work stress, and erased employers' roles in managing working conditions. Conclusions included that nurses used substances in ways that enabled them to remain silent and keep working. Nurses' education did not prepare them regarding nurses' substance-use problems or managing emotional labor. Nurses viewed alcohol as an acceptable and encouraged coping strategy for nurses to manage emotional distress.

A critical examination of empowerment discourse in medical tourism: the case of the dental tourism industry in Los Algodones, Mexico.

BACKGROUND: Medical tourism is a term used to describe the phenomenon of individuals intentionally traveling across national borders to privately purchase medical care. The medical tourism industry has been portrayed in the media as an "escape valve" providing alternative care options as a result of vast economic asymmetries between the global north and global south and the flexible regulatory environment in which care is provided to medical tourists. Discourse suggesting the medical tourism industry necessarily enhances access to medical care has been employed by industry stakeholders to promote continued expansion of the industry; however, it remains unknown how this discourse informs industry practices on the ground. Using case study methodology, this research examines the perspectives and experiences of industry stakeholders working and living in a dental tourism industry site in northern Mexico to develop a better understanding of the ways in which common discourses of the industry are taken up or resisted by various industry stakeholders and the possible implications of these practices on health equity. RESULTS: Interview discussions with a range of industry stakeholders suggest that care provision in this particular location enables international patients to access high quality dental care at more affordable prices than typically available in their home countries. However, interview participants also raised concerns about the quality of care provided to medical tourists and poor access to needed care amongst local populations. These concerns disrupt discourses about the positive health impacts of the industry commonly circulated by industry stakeholders positioned to profit from these unjust industry practices. CONCLUSIONS: We argue in this paper that elite industry stakeholders in our case site took up discourses of medical tourism as enhancing access to care in ways that mask health equity concerns for the industry and justify particular industry activities despite health equity concerns for these practices. This research provides new insight into the ways in which the medical tourism industry raises ethical concern and the structures of power informing unethical practices.

"Stay cool, sell stuff cheap, and smile": Examining how reputational management of dental tourism reinforces structural oppression in Los Algodones, Mexico.

Los Algodones, Mexico is characteristic of other medical border towns whose proximity to the Mexico-United States border enables American and Canadian patients to take advantage of economic asymmetries on either side of the border to access desired health care. Los Algodones is unique, however, in its focus on the provision of dental care and claims by local residents that it has the highest concentration of dentists per capita in the world. In this paper, we present an analysis of interviews with employees working in Los Algodones' dental tourism industry to examine interviewees' participation in practices related to reputational management of the industry site. Drawing on our interview discussions, we argue that many of these reputational management practices reinforce structural injustices and raise concerns for structural exploitation in the industry. This analysis nuances ethical considerations for medical tourism by highlighting structural factors informing unjust practices within the industry, factors which might be relevant to other medical tourism contexts.

Empowerment in the field of health promotion: recognizing challenges in working toward equity.

Over the last 25 years, the language of empowerment has been woven into the guiding missions and descriptions of institutions, funding and projects globally. Although theoretical understandings of empowerment within the domain of health promotion remain contentious, we have little idea of how a shift toward an empowerment agenda has affected the daily work of those in the field of health promotion. A systematic examination of the implementation of the empowerment agenda is important as it can help us understand how redistributive agendas are received within the multiple institutional contexts in which health promotion work is carried out. The goal of this study, therefore, was to try to understand the empowerment agenda within the context of everyday health promotion. We conducted semi-structured interviews with health promoters from a variety of geographical regions, institutional backgrounds, and job capacities. Essentially we found that empowerment remains conceptually dear to health promoters' understanding of their work, yet at the same time, mainstreaming empowerment is at odds with central trends and initiatives that govern this work. We argue that many of the stumbling blocks that have hindered this specific agenda are actually central stumbling blocks for the wider field of health promotion. We examine some of the barriers to implementing transformational change. Overcoming the primary limitations uncovered in this exploration of empowerment is actually crucial to progressive work in health promotion in general, particularly work that would seek to lessen inequities.

Health system reform and safe abortion: a case study of Mongolia.

Unsafe abortion serves as a marker of global inequity as it is concentrated in the developing world where the poorest and most vulnerable women live. While liberalisation of abortion law is essential to the reduction of unsafe abortion, a number of challenges exist beyond this important step. This paper investigates how popular health system reforms consonant with neoliberal agendas can challenge access to safe abortion. We use Mongolia, a country that has liberalised abortion law, yet, limited access to safe abortion, as a case study. Mongolia embraced market reforms in 1990 and subsequently reformed its health system. We document how common reforms in the areas of finance and regulation can compromise the safety of abortions as they foster challenges that include inconsistencies in service delivery that further foment health inequities, adoption of reproductive health programmes that are incompatible with the local sociocultural context, unregulated growth of the private sector and poor enforcement of standards and technical guidelines for safe abortion. We then discuss how this case study suggests the conversations that reproductive health policy-makers must have with those engineering health sector reform to ensure access to safe abortion in a liberalised environment.

Who's judging the quality of care? Indigenous Maya and the problem of "not being attended".

In developing countries, lack of trust in the quality of care provided is often cited as a major factor promoting reluctance to seek biomedical help for obstetric emergencies. This article draws on fieldwork among Mayan informants in Sololá, Guatemala, to explore poor perceptions of the quality of care received when seeking obstetric care in the hospital. Using data collected over two years, I set out to understand why interviewees repeatedly complain that hospital staff "do not attend to you." I maintain that the powerlessness of patients to influence the treatment they receive further reduces their trust in the quality of care delivered, ultimately negatively impacting the decision to seek obstetric care. Finally, I argue for the importance of recognizing the influence of the wider historical and social context in creating the dynamics of this interaction. The implications of this research in defining the quality of care and skilled attendance within the quest to make pregnancy safer are discussed.