Doctoral Dissertation Research: Socio-Spatial Factors Influencing Prenatal Care Availability, Access, and Use

该项目通过调查影响移民妇女怀孕期间健康的不断变化的社会空间关系（如政治、经济、社会文化和地理），探讨与移民保健有关的问题。 以佛罗里达州伊莫卡莱的海地移民农场工人为例，本研究调查了移民妇女产前护理的可用性、提供、利用和可及性，以便不仅了解这些妇女在怀孕期间试图保持健康所面临的具体问题，而且了解更广泛的政治、经济、社会和文化因素。和社会进程，有助于移民妇女的健康差距在美国各地。 该研究预计将填补学术和临床上的差距，了解影响移民健康的社会空间因素，移民医疗保健的政治，农村和少数民族的健康差距，以及更广泛的医疗保健系统上的负担得起的医疗法案的新兴影响。 它还探讨了方法的可能性提供了定性GIS的健康研究人员和规划人员通过生产动态地图，显示性别，政治，经济和医疗保健之间的复杂关系。 使用关键的医学地理学框架，研究人员从医疗保健，交叉性，移民和关键GIS的跨学科文献中汲取。 该项目有四个相互关联的目标：第一，利用档案研究和绘图，它探讨了移民健康的不断变化的政治（和“应得”的概念）如何影响美国的医疗保健景观。其次，它使用的访谈数据从医疗保健提供者来解释如何改变移民医疗保健的政治影响提供护理的移民妇女。 第三，使用女权定性GIS和多会话深入访谈，该项目调查移民妇女的医疗保健系统的经验，以及这些经验如何影响他们在哪里以及如何利用医疗保健服务。 最后，它确定了社会空间障碍，移民妇女在获得保健，努力提高社区的医疗服务的可及性。

This project explores issues related to immigrant health care through an investigation of the changing socio-spatial relationships (e.g. political, economic, socio-cultural, and geographic) that shape immigrant women's health during pregnancy. Using the case of Haitian migrant farm workers in Immokalee, FL, this research investigates the availability, provision, utilization, and accessibility of prenatal care to immigrant women in order to understand not only the specific issues that these women face in trying to maintain their health during pregnancy, but also the broader political, economic, and social processes that contribute to immigrant women's health disparities across the United States. The research is expected to fill scholarly and clinical gaps in understanding the socio-spatial factors influencing immigrant health, the politics of immigrant health care, rural and minority health disparities, and the emerging impacts of the Affordable Care Act on the health care system more broadly. It also explores the methodological possibilities offered by qualitative GIS to health researchers and planners by producing dynamic maps that show the complex relationship between gender, politics, economics, and health care. Using a critical medical geography framework, the researchers draw from interdisciplinary literatures on healthcare, intersectionality, immigration, and critical GIS. The project has four interrelated aims: First, using archival research and mapping, it explores how the changing politics of immigrant health (and the notion of "deservingness") affect the health care landscape in the United States. Second, it uses interview data from health care providers to explain how the changing politics of immigrant health care affects the provision of care for immigrant women. Third, using feminist qualitative GIS and multi-session in-depth interviewing, the project investigates immigrant women's experiences of the health care system, as well as how these experiences influence where and how they utilize health care services. Finally, it identifies the socio-spatial barriers that immigrant women face in accessing care in an effort to improve health care accessibility in the community.