Determinants of Black women's health in rural and remote communities

The On the Margins project investigated health status, health-care delivery, and use of health services among African-Canadian women residing in rural and remote regions of the province of Nova Scotia. A participatory action research approach provided a framework for the study. Triangulation of data-collection methods--interviews, focus groups, and questionnaires--formed the basis of data generation. A total of 237 in-depth one-on-one interviews were conducted and coded verbatim. Atlas-ti data-management software was used to facilitate coding and analysis. Six themes emerged from the data: Black women's multiple roles, perceptions of health, experiences with the health-care system, factors affecting health, strategies for managing health, and envisioning solutions. The authors focus on 1 of these themes, factors affecting Black women's health, and discuss 3 subthemes: race and racism, poverty and unemployment, and access to health care.