Revisiting Personal is Political: Immigrant Women’s Health Promotion

Becoming an immigrant is a process characterized by losses in socio-economic status and social networks. Although on arrival in Canada immigrants have a better health status than the average Canadian^[1], after 10 years in the country they are in poorer health and have a higher prevalence of chronic health conditions^[2].

Immigrant women are particularly at risk for mental illness and other chronic diseases. They also lack access to health care services. In addition, very little is known about immigrant women’s strengths and their health promotion strategies in everyday life. In this context, it is important to acquire new insights on how to promote immigrant women’s health.

In this participatory project, immigrant women and researchers worked together to attain a better understanding of how gender, health, place and the politics of everyday life are interwoven and of how to use this knowledge to promote immigrant women’s health.

This project was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and was conducted in Toronto from 2002-2005. Click on the tabs to the left to explore the findings.