Assessing Geospatial Barriers in Refugee Resettlement Communities: A Descriptive Exploration about How to Identify the Health and Other Resource Needs of Recently Resettled Refugee Women

Abstract

Research ABSTRACTRefugee women often arrive in the United States with extensive health care needs, yet significant barriers often prevent these women from accessing appropriate health care. Preliminary data suggests that refugee women living in Salt Lake County, Utah are largely immobile and experience great difficulty navigating outside their immediate neighbourhood. In addition, many refugee groups and individuals are resettled into communities where apartments are available without consideration of resource needs, i.e., access to public transportation, food and clothing retailers, schools, etc. This current research utilizes geographic information systems software to evaluate the geospatial barriers refugee women in a metropolitan areas face when seeking health and other resources. The analysis shows that, in addition to being spatially isolated from other refugees of their community of origin, these groups often reside in "resource deserts," where resources are not in close proximity and significant barriers, such as multilane highways and reliable, timely public transportation prevent easy navigation. This study suggests that interventions seeking to improve refugee women's health should evaluate the geographic barriers and seek to develop tools to expand the spatial mobility of these vulnerable populations.

Healthcare service delivery to refugee children from the Democratic Republic of Congo living in Durban, South Africa: a caregivers’ perspective

“…It has been argued that language barriers contribute to the failure of treating refugees for whom English is not their first language [ 2 ]. Not only is it difficult for healthcare workers to render a good quality service if they are unable to communicate with the caregiver of about the child [ 10 , 31 , 36 ], it is also frustrating for caregivers not to be able to raise their concerns and ask questions. The results clearly show that caregivers were dissatisfied with the consultation process as they were not able to ask the necessary questions nor were clear guidelines and explanations given.…”