Empathy and journey mapping the healthcare experience: a community-based participatory approach to exploring women’s access to primary health services within Melbourne’s Arabic-speaking refugee communities

ABSTRACT

Objectives: This community-based participatory research focused on physical and social barriers to healthcare for refugee women in Melbourne, Australia.

Design: Women from non-English speaking backgrounds explored the meaning and impact of their health journeys through group surveys, Photovoice and GIS go-alongs. This empathy-building research also explored acceptability, desirability and feasibility of mHealth solutions to improve access to primary healthcare services.

Results: Refugee women reported low utilisation of preventive healthcare services including limited awareness of cervical or breast screening.

Conclusions: Phone ownership and health information searches online indicate mHealth solutions are feasible and acceptable to improve healthcare access, literacy and autonomy within this population.

KEYWORDS:

• Community-based participatory research
• health literacy
• health technology
• refugee women
• health services accessibility

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the time and experiences the women involved in this CBPR shared, particularly that of the Photovoice co-researchers, whose names have remained anonymous.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This CBPR study received partial funding from the Rotary Club of Beaumaris (District 9810) and the North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network to cover costs associated with hiring BHEs and the compensation of community co-researchers and participants. In-kind management/strategic support was generously donated by Julie Gibson of Hitnet. Dr Jacqueline Boyle is supported by a Career Development Fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council.