Social Change, Migration and Sexual Health: Chilean Women in Chile and Australia

Abstract

Cultural beliefs, norms and values regarding sexuality and gender roles forge people's sexual behaviour and understanding of sexual health risk. Acknowledging a person's cultural background is a key challenge for the promotion of sexual health programs and strategies for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and HIV/AIDS. This challenge acquires larger dimensions when health promotion programs are directed towards migrant communities. This article examines narratives about past and present life experiences of Chilean women living in Australia and Chilean women in Chile. We inquire about social changes and exposure to education women experienced in their own country and in Australia and the ways in which migrant women define and articulate their experiences in relation to sexual health prevention. In comparing these experiences, we raise a number of questions about sexual health promotion and programs, including the prevention of STDs and HIV/AIDS targeted to specific migrant communities in Australia. Very few sexual health policies and strategies in Australia take into account the impact that the social and cultural background of migrants, social changes and the 'settlement process' has on the cultural construction of gender identity of migrants in the new country. We propose that these cultural constructs are key in the formulation of migrants' beliefs and attitudes towards sexuality and sexual health. We suggest that there is a need to build effective and culturally appropriate sexual health promotion and prevention strategies that build upon the social and cultural background and the present and past life experiences of migrant women and men.

HIV among immigrants living in high-income countries: a realist review of evidence to guide targeted approaches to behavioural HIV prevention

“…Other dominant themes in cultural values that impacted on HIV prevention included the differences between male and female gender roles among many immigrant communities [127-129,136,137,142,148-150], which in the studies of Latino communities were often described using concepts such as machismo . “To be a strong male is to get sex and to be a strong woman is to resist sex” ([136] p. 411).…”

“…This mechanism also raises specific challenges for the design and implementation of interventions in seeking to find an appropriate balance between ‘old country’ and ‘new country’ – or the ‘past’ and the ‘present’ context – across a range of dimensions including norms [109], values, experiences [116,120,132,135,137,138,142] and understandings of critical information around HIV [125,139,141]. The evidence to support this mechanism from the intervention and views studies was largely consistent with how the ‘ consonance ’ mechanism had originally been theorised.…”

“…Sound or moderate evidence to support this mechanism was reported in 18 views studies indicating that the ‘ understanding ’ mechanism was also valued by immigrants themselves in contributing to culturally appropriate HIV prevention [115,120,121,125-127,129-133,139,144,147,150,165,166]. There was partial evidence from a further eight studies for this mechanism largely inferred from the use of community languages by the researchers to successfully elicit the views of immigrants [117,119,135,137,141,142,148,149]. The strengths of ‘ understanding ’ mechanisms from the perspectives of immigrants were that communication (reading, writing, listening or speaking) in your preferred first language lowered the threshold of, and maximised participation and engagement with, intervention activities and, in turn, increased the opportunities to act on and benefit from the intervention.…”

Culture Clash? Investigating constructions of sexual and reproductive health from the perspective of 1.5 generation migrants in Australia using Q methodology

“…Cultural differences between a migrant’s country of origin and that of immigration are linked to reduced help-seeking behaviour across a range of health outcomes [7] and especially with regard to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) [8, 9]. SRH is of particular note as many cultures have quite clear ideologies about sexuality, sexual behaviour and thus SRH [10].…”

“…SRH is of particular note as many cultures have quite clear ideologies about sexuality, sexual behaviour and thus SRH [10]. Research indicates that when migrants feel bound to constructions of SRH as per their ethnic origins they may not utilise SRH services [8, 9]. Migrants may perceive these services to be inappropriate or that seeking such services would be perceived of negatively by their cultural group [10].…”