Voices Unheard is a report released by the Black Women’s Institute for Health that shares the results of Canada’s first national survey focusing on the health of Black women and girls, with close to 2,000 respondents.
The report highlights that for many Black women, girls, and gender-conforming people, “accessing quality healthcare too often means navigating systems that neither see nor understand [their] unique needs.” It takes a comprehensive view of health, addressing not only medical conditions and clinical care, but also broader social determinants of health — “the economic and social conditions that influence individual and group differences in health status, including factors like income, education, employment, housing, and experiences of discrimination.”
Survey respondents identified several barriers to care, including “long wait times, lack of culturally competent providers, fear of discrimination, and financial constraints.” The report also shows that the barriers have led to “distrust in healthcare systems, delayed care, misdiagnoses, and emotional exhaustion from constant self-advocacy.”
Voice Unheard also contains recommendations for governments of all levels, hospitals, health units and other healthcare institutions, medical, nursing and hospital regulators and associations, and education research and academic institutions.
You can read the report and see the related infographic on the Black Women’s Institute for Health’s website.