IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v13y2016i5p485-d69800.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Migrant Sexual Health Help-Seeking and Experiences of Stigmatization and Discrimination in Perth, Western Australia: Exploring Barriers and Enablers

Author

Listed:
  • Josephine Agu

    (School of Public Health, Curtin University, Kent Street, Bentley, Western Australia 6102, Australia)

  • Roanna Lobo

    (Collaboration for Evidence, Research and Impact in Public Health, School of Public Health, Curtin University, Kent Street, Bentley, Western Australia 6102, Australia)

  • Gemma Crawford

    (Collaboration for Evidence, Research and Impact in Public Health, School of Public Health, Curtin University, Kent Street, Bentley, Western Australia 6102, Australia)

  • Bethwyn Chigwada

    (HepatitisWA (Inc.), 134 Aberdeen Street, Northbridge, Western Australia 6003, Australia)

Abstract

Increasing HIV notifications amongst migrant and mobile populations to Australia is a significant public health issue. Generalizations about migrant health needs and delayed or deterred help-seeking behaviors can result from disregarding the variation between and within cultures including factors, such as drivers for migration and country of birth. This study explored barriers and enablers to accessing sexual health services, including experiences of stigma and discrimination, within a purposive sample of sub-Saharan African, Southeast Asian, and East Asian migrants. A qualitative design was employed using key informant interviews and focus group discussions. A total of 45 people with ages ranging from 18 to 50 years, participated in focus group discussions. Common barriers and enablers to help seeking behaviors were sociocultural and religious influence, financial constraints, and knowledge dissemination to reduce stigma. Additionally, common experiences of stigma and discrimination were related to employment and the social and self-isolation of people living with HIV. Overcoming barriers to accessing sexual health services, imparting sexual health knowledge, recognizing variations within cultures, and a reduction in stigma and discrimination will simultaneously accelerate help-seeking and result in better sexual health outcomes in migrant populations.

Suggested Citation

  • Josephine Agu & Roanna Lobo & Gemma Crawford & Bethwyn Chigwada, 2016. "Migrant Sexual Health Help-Seeking and Experiences of Stigmatization and Discrimination in Perth, Western Australia: Exploring Barriers and Enablers," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-22, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:13:y:2016:i:5:p:485-:d:69800
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/5/485/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/13/5/485/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lourdes Benería & Carmen Diana Deere & Naila Kabeer, 2012. "Gender and International Migration: Globalization, Development, and Governance," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(2), pages 1-33, April.
    2. Valdiserri, R.O., 2002. "HIV/AIDS stigma: An impediment to public health," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 92(3), pages 341-342.
    3. Hatzenbuehler, M.L. & Phelan, J.C. & Link, B.G., 2013. "Stigma as a fundamental cause of population health inequalities," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 103(5), pages 813-821.
    4. A. Jolibert & L. Flores & H. Muhlbacher, 2012. "Marketing Management : A Value Creation Process," Post-Print halshs-00788728, HAL.
    5. Romer, D. & Sznitman, S. & DiClemente, R. & Salazar, L.F. & Vanable, P.A. & Carey, M.P. & Hennessy, M. & Brown, L.K. & Valois, R.F. & Stanton, B.F. & Fortune, T. & Juzang, I., 2009. "Mass media as an HIV-prevention strategy: Using culturally sensitive messages to reduce HIV-associated sexual behavior of at-risk African American youth," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 99(12), pages 2150-2159.
    6. Jan Ostermann & Elizabeth A Reddy & Meghan M Shorter & Charles Muiruri & Antipas Mtalo & Dafrosa K Itemba & Bernard Njau & John A Bartlett & John A Crump & Nathan M Thielman, 2011. "Who Tests, Who Doesn't, and Why? Uptake of Mobile HIV Counseling and Testing in the Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(1), pages 1-8, January.
    7. Gee, G.C., 2002. "A multilevel analysis of the relationship between institutional and individual racial discrimination and health status," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 92(4), pages 615-623.
    8. Sweetman, Arthur, 2004. "Immigrant Source Country Educational Quality and Canadian Labour Market Outcomes," Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series 2004234e, Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch.
    9. Sikkema, K.J. & Kelly, J.A. & Winett, R.A. & Solomon, L.J. & Cargill, V.A. & Roffman, R.A. & McAuliffe, T.L. & Heckman, T.G. & Anderson, E.A. & Wagstaff, D.A. & Norman, A.D. & Perry, M.J. & Crumble, D, 2000. "Outcomes of a randomized community-level HIV prevention intervention for women living in 18 low-income housing developments," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 90(1), pages 57-63.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Corie Gray & Gemma Crawford & Bruce Maycock & Roanna Lobo, 2021. "Socioecological Factors Influencing Sexual Health Experiences and Health Outcomes of Migrant Asian Women Living in ‘Western’ High-Income Countries: A Systematic Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-14, March.
    2. Daniel Vujcich & Sonam Wangda & Meagan Roberts & Roanna Lobo & Bruce Maycock & Chanaka Kulappu Thanthirige & Alison Reid, 2020. "Modes of administering sexual health and blood-borne virus surveys in migrant populations: A scoping review," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(8), pages 1-31, August.
    3. Corie Gray & Roanna Lobo & Lea Narciso & Enaam Oudih & Praveena Gunaratnam & Rachel Thorpe & Gemma Crawford, 2019. "Why I Can’t, Won’t or Don’t Test for HIV: Insights from Australian Migrants Born in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(6), pages 1-18, March.
    4. Donna Angelina Rade & Gemma Crawford & Roanna Lobo & Corie Gray & Graham Brown, 2018. "Sexual Health Help-Seeking Behavior among Migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia living in High Income Countries: A Systematic Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-22, June.
    5. Sajana Ghimire & Jonathan Hallett & Corie Gray & Roanna Lobo & Gemma Crawford, 2019. "What Works? Prevention and Control of Sexually Transmitted Infections and Blood-Borne Viruses in Migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa, Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia Living in High-Income Countries: A ," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-17, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Liat Ayalon, 2018. "Perceived Age Discrimination: A Precipitator or a Consequence of Depressive Symptoms?," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 73(5), pages 860-869.
    2. Chen Zhang & Xiaoming Li & Yu Liu & Shan Qiao & Liying Zhang & Yuejiao Zhou & Zhenzhu Tang & Zhiyong Shen & Yi Chen, 2016. "Stigma against People Living with HIV/AIDS in China: Does the Route of Infection Matter?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(3), pages 1-15, March.
    3. Johnston, David W. & Lordan, Grace, 2012. "Discrimination makes me sick! An examination of the discrimination–health relationship," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 99-111.
    4. Mayank Aggarwal & Anindya S. Chakrabarti & Chirantan Chatterjee, 2023. "Movies, stigma and choice: Evidence from the pharmaceutical industry," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(5), pages 1019-1039, May.
    5. Karen M. Davison & Vidhi Thakkar & Shen (Lamson) Lin & Lorna Stabler & Maura MacPhee & Simon Carroll & Benjamin Collins & Zachary Rezler & Jake Colautti & Chaoqun (Cherry) Xu & Esme Fuller-Thomson & B, 2021. "Interventions to Support Mental Health among Those with Health Conditions That Present Risk for Severe Infection from Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): A Scoping Review of English and Chinese-Langu," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-22, July.
    6. Kévin Jean & Xavier Anglaret & Raoul Moh & France Lert & Rosemary Dray-Spira, 2012. "Barriers to HIV Testing in Côte d'Ivoire: The Role of Individual Characteristics and Testing Modalities," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(7), pages 1-9, July.
    7. Ana Ferrer & W. Craig Riddell, 2008. "Education, credentials, and immigrant earnings," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(1), pages 186-216, February.
    8. Garthwaite, Kayleigh & Bambra, Clare, 2017. "“How the other half live”: Lay perspectives on health inequalities in an age of austerity," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 268-275.
    9. Layland, Eric K. & Maggs, Jennifer L. & Kipke, Michele D. & Bray, Bethany C., 2022. "Intersecting racism and homonegativism among sexual minority men of color: Latent class analysis of multidimensional stigma with subgroup differences in health and sociostructural burdens," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    10. McNeill, Lorna Haughton & Kreuter, Matthew W. & Subramanian, S.V., 2006. "Social Environment and Physical activity: A review of concepts and evidence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(4), pages 1011-1022, August.
    11. Ingrid V Bassett & Darshini Govindasamy & Alison S Erlwanger & Emily P Hyle & Katharina Kranzer & Nienke van Schaik & Farzad Noubary & A David Paltiel & Robin Wood & Rochelle P Walensky & Elena Losina, 2014. "Mobile HIV Screening in Cape Town, South Africa: Clinical Impact, Cost and Cost-Effectiveness," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(1), pages 1-11, January.
    12. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul W., 2010. "The Effects of School Quality in the Origin on the Payoff to Schooling for Immigrants," IZA Discussion Papers 5075, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Antoine Marsaudon & Josselin Thuilliez, 2016. "Does democracy reduce the HIV epidemic? Evidence from Kenya," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01400833, HAL.
    14. Valentine Fays & Benoît Mahy & François Rycx, 2023. "Wage differences according to workers' origin: The role of working more upstream in GVCs," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 37(2), pages 319-342, June.
    15. Iván Sánchez-Iglesias, 2023. "The “Why” in Mental Health, Stigma, and Addictive Behaviors: Causal Inferences in Applied Settings," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(20), pages 1-7, October.
    16. Vasiliki Bozani & Nick Drydakis & Katerina Sidiropoulou & Benjamin Harvey & Anna Paraskevopoulou, 2019. "Workplace positive actions, trans people’s self-esteem and human resources’ evaluations," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 41(6), pages 809-831, November.
    17. O'Donnell, Aisling T. & Foran, Aoife-Marie, 2024. "The link between anticipated and internalized stigma and depression: A systematic review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 349(C).
    18. Keith J. Zullig & Robert F. Valois & Gerald R. Hobbs & Jelani C. Kerr & Daniel Romer & Michael P. Carey & Larry K. Brown & Ralph J. DiClemente & Peter A. Vanable, 2020. "Can a Multilevel STI/HIV Prevention Strategy for High Risk African American Adolescents Improve Life Satisfaction?," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 417-436, February.
    19. Fenton, Anny T. & Elliott, Marc N. & Schwebel, David C. & Berkowitz, Zahava & Liddon, Nicole C. & Tortolero, Susan R. & Cuccaro, Paula M. & Davies, Suzy L. & Schuster, Mark A., 2018. "Unequal interactions: Examining the role of patient-centered care in reducing inequitable diffusion of a medical innovation, the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 238-248.
    20. Timothy P Schofield & Peter Butterworth, 2015. "Patterns of Welfare Attitudes in the Australian Population," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(11), pages 1-14, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:13:y:2016:i:5:p:485-:d:69800. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.