Seeking Health Information: A Qualitative Study of the Experiences of Women of Refugee Background from Myanmar in Perth, Western Australia

Georgia Griffin, S. Zaung Nau, Mohammed Ali, Elisha Riggs and Jaya A. R. Dantas
Additional contact information
Georgia Griffin: Curtin School of Population Health, Curtin University, Bentley, WA 6102, Australia
S. Zaung Nau: School of Management and Marketing, Curtin University, Bentley, WA 6102, Australia
Mohammed Ali: Curtin School of Population Health, Curtin University, Bentley, WA 6102, Australia
Elisha Riggs: Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Parkville, VIC 3052, Australia
Jaya A. R. Dantas: Curtin School of Population Health, Curtin University, Bentley, WA 6102, Australia

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 6, 1-19

Abstract: Women of refugee background are subject to significant health inequity. Access to health information and a good level of health literacy are integral components to manage one’s health needs. The aim of this study isto understand the experiences of women of refugee background from Myanmar seeking and accessing health information. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 women of refugee background from Myanmar resettled in Western Australia. Interpretative phenomenological analysis underpinned the study and was conducted on the interview data. Three superordinate themes and nine subordinate themes emerged from the analysis: (1) Seeking health information (Motivation and Sources), (2) Facilitators and Barriers (Communication, Navigating the system and Community) and (3) Seeking health information in the context of past experiences (Health information as a by-product of healthcare, Health professionals’ provision of health information, Accessibility of healthcare and Expectations on resettlement). These themes provide insight into the challenges of accessing understandable and actionable health information and of promoting the health literacy of women of refugee background from Myanmar. Co-designed community-based and health service interventions should be trialled, including trauma-informed training for health professionals, health information apps and community health promotion programs. Community engagement, participation and evaluation are critical for determining the effective interventions to address the inequalities experienced by this population.

Keywords: apps; communication; community; health information; health literacy; health promotion; Myanmar; refugee; trauma; women (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/6/3289/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/6/3289/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:6:p:3289-:d:768563

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().