Health Access

Using the example of a community-based health promotion intervention, this paper explores the important triangle between health promotion theory, intervention design, and evaluation research. This paper first outlines the intervention and then the mixed-method evaluation. In 2007, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) designed and implemented an intervention to improve the uptake of maternal health provision in rural Nepal. A community-based needs assessment preceded this novel health-promotion intervention that empowered women with information on the benefits of seeking care. The intervention had a flexible design and, at several points, the intervention’s progress was assessed and, where necessary, changes were made. The intervention targeted women of childbearing age and people (e.g. mothers-in-law and husbands) who influence these women’s ability to access health services. The intervention attempted to incorporate the diverse and changing needs of the local communities to make i...

This paper examines the effects of the rescission announcement of the DACA program on the health outcomes of Latino DACA recipients in California. Research shows that undocumented immigrants face poorer health outcomes than their documented counterparts and U.S. citizens, and that being offered legal status (e.g. DACA) considerably improves their health outcomes. Even though studies have examined the impact of shifting legal status on incorporation, to our knowledge no studies have considered the effects of announcing the rescission of the DACA program on its recipients. However, this is important because it may have implications on their health outcomes. This study addresses this gap by using in-depth interviews with 43 Latino DACA recipients living in the California San Francisco Bay Area in 2017 and 2018. Our findings suggest that rescission announcement of DACA has led to worsening health outcomes for DACA recipients. Specifically, we find that it created what we call a state of transitory legality among the 1.5 generation, which causes DACA recipients to experience health outcomes that are worse than those before DACA. Our results are important in the field of sociology, public policy and heath care because they show the negative effects of reversing inclusionary immigration policies on the health outcomes of undocumented Latino immigrants.

A principios de 2018, fueron presentados varios proyectos de ley con el objeto de regular el acceso gratuito a los servicios públicos de salud y de educación superior de aquellos migrantes internacionales que no revistieran la condición de “residentes permanentes” sobre la base de criterios de “reciprocidad”. Durante casi dos semanas, los proyectos concentraron gran parte de la atención mediática, instalándose como tema prioritario de la agenda pública. A través del análisis de dichos proyectos y de su tratamiento en la prensa digital hegemónica, este trabajo propone una exploración de las narrativas que circularon en relación al acceso gratuito de la población migrante a la salud, para posteriormente indagar sobre los efectos simbólicos que produce la hipervisibilización de una determinada posición política sobre el tema. Se aplicó una metodología cualitativa centrada en los análisis de discurso y de contenido con el objetivo de analizar la articulación entre el discurso jurídico y...

Ecological Analysis of Bisexual Identity and Health Access: An Interpretive Critical Inquiry (May 2019) This interpretive critical inquiry was aimed at coming to understand the experiences of self-identified bisexuals, and how bisexual health disparities occur due to misunderstandings of bisexual identity and institutional barriers that foster biphobia. This study was carried out in the metropolitan Atlanta area. Purposive sampling was used to select 36 self-identified bisexuals as study participants. The data collection included participant observations ethnographic interviews, focus groups, and document analyses and occurred over a 19-month period between January 2017 and July 2018. The focus groups and interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using Lincoln and Guba’s approach to content analysis. Based on the themes and subthemes that emerged, the experiences of bisexual healthcare experiences seemed to yield positive self-image that is complicated by how society...

A principios de 2018, fueron presentados varios proyectos de ley con el objeto de regular el acceso gratuito a los servicios públicos de salud y de educación superior de aquellos migrantes internacionales que no revistieran la condición de “residentes permanentes” sobre la base de criterios de “reciprocidad”. Durante casi dos semanas, los proyectos concentraron gran parte de la atención mediática, instalándose como tema prioritario de la agenda pública. A través del análisis de dichos proyectos y de su tratamiento en la prensa digital hegemónica, este trabajo propone una exploración de las narrativas que circularon en relación al acceso gratuito de la población migrante a la salud, para posteriormente indagar sobre los efectos simbólicos que produce la hipervisibilización de una determinada posición política sobre el tema. Se aplicó una metodología cualitativa centrada en los análisis de discurso y de contenido con el objetivo de analizar la articulación entre el discurso jurídico y...

Using the example of a community-based health promotion intervention, this paper explores the important triangle between health promotion theory, intervention design, and evaluation research. This paper first outlines the intervention and then the mixed-method evaluation. In 2007, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) designed and implemented an intervention to improve the uptake of maternal health provision in rural Nepal. A community-based needs assessment preceded this novel health-promotion intervention that empowered women with information on the benefits of seeking care. The intervention had a flexible design and, at several points, the intervention’s progress was assessed and, where necessary, changes were made. The intervention targeted women of childbearing age and people (e.g. mothers-in-law and husbands) who influence these women’s ability to access health services. The intervention attempted to incorporate the diverse and changing needs of the local communities to make i...

This study explored to what degree economic development and improvement of healthcare are associated with lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) mortality. A correlation analysis between LRTI mortality and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, and the Health Access and Quality Index (HAQI), respectively was conducted for 15 countries in East and South-East Asia. The results revealed a dramatic decrease in LRTI mortality in total populations for lower-middle income (LMI) countries but at the same time an increase in upper-middle income (UMI) and high-income (HI) countries. A highly significant ( P < .001) growth-dependent relationship between LRTI mortality and economic growth was observed. Improvements in HAQI were significantly associated with a decrease in LRTI mortality in LMI countries, but an increase in UMI and HI countries. The decline of LRTI mortality amongst children in LMI countries is an encouraging trend and efforts against LRTI must be continued, though not at ...

Following the birth of the first “test-tube baby” in 1978, Assisted Reproductive Technologies became available to a small number of people in high-income countries able to afford the cost of private treatment, a period seen as the “First Phase” of ARTs. In the “Second Phase,” these treatments became increasingly available to cosmopolitan global elites. Today, this picture is changing — albeit slowly and unevenly — as ARTs are becoming more widely available. While, for many, accessing infertility treatments remains a dream, these are beginning to be viewed as a standard part of reproductive healthcare and family planning. This volume highlights this “Third Phase” — the opening up of ARTs to new constituencies in terms of ethnicity, geography, education, and class.