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Interviewee: Aysan Dehghani, Bachelors, College of British Columbia | Editors: Janielle Richards, Romina Garcia de leon (Weblog coordinators)
Revealed: March 28, 2025
Are you able to inform us about your analysis?
I’m at present ending my bachelor’s diploma, and the analysis I lead known as IWASHRA’s Neighborhood Compass. The challenge focuses on immigrant girls’s entry to sexual and reproductive well being in British Columbia. We’re exploring the accessibility and experiences of newcomer girls in the case of healthcare—all the pieces from discovering assets, to their interactions with healthcare suppliers, and the way they navigate the system. Primarily, we’re taking a look at how immigrant girls have interaction with the healthcare system and figuring out any limitations they face.
The challenge began as a directed-study beneath the steerage of my major investigator, Dr. Jemima Baada, who’s a professor within the Geography Division at UBC. The challenge developed right into a community-based initiative. It’s been working for about three years now, and our workforce consists of 4 researchers, together with a graphic designer who initially joined our workforce as we made it to the Map the System finals at UBC, and who has continued to assist us with displays and supplies.
Regardless that we’re within the technique of writing a coverage transient with the CERC in Migration and Integration workforce at Toronto Metropolitan College, we’ve additionally been conducting workshops with the group. To this point, we’ve held two main workshops, and the newest one targeted on “journey mapping.”
Are you able to describe “journey mapping”?
Journey mapping is a visualization software we utilized in one in all our workshops to raised perceive how immigrant girls entry healthcare assets, notably because it pertains to sexual and reproductive well being. It’s primarily a timeline that traces their experiences—from the preliminary stage of trying to find healthcare data, like the best way to discover a major care physician or testing facilities, all through to receiving care and making suggestions on what enhancements will be made.
We had a proper dialogue within the bigger group, but additionally broke into smaller teams with tables of newcomer girls, the place we facilitated discussions. To make the workshop much more beneficial, we collaborated and invited group companions MAP, Volentia Translation and Strong State Coop. We additionally invited a household doctor, Dr. Mei-Ling Wiedmeyer, from Umbrella Well being Co-Op, to hitch us. She has expertise working with cultural well being brokers, so she understands the challenges confronted by newcomer girls in accessing healthcare.
Throughout the advice stage of the workshop, Dr. Wiedmeyer was in a position to filter the ideas and supply insights from her expertise as a doctor. For instance, she emphasised the necessity for adjustments to Canada’s “one-size-fits-all” healthcare mannequin. The present system doesn’t at all times meet the various wants of immigrant populations, and we have to adapt to these wants.
What led you to do that analysis?
I determine as a third-culture pupil. I’m ethnically Persian, however I’ve lived in a number of nations, together with the UAE, Germany, and now Canada. My household moved to Germany proper in the midst of the European refugee disaster in 2015, and that have left an impression on me. I used to be despatched to a refugee camp to finish paperwork once we arrived, and I spotted how tough it was to navigate the system as a newcomer, even with all of the privileges I had.
This expertise sparked my curiosity in immigrant and refugee points. Throughout highschool, I even wrote my IB thesis on the political penalties of Angela Merkel’s choice to permit over 1 million refugees into Germany. From there, I targeted my research at UBC on migration, well being, and coverage, notably round how the healthcare system can serve immigrant populations. I additionally labored on the BC Heart for Illness Management on a digital sexual well being initiative known as DiSHI, which additional fueled my curiosity in sexual well being and reaching particular populations with tailor-made assets.
Presently, I’m additionally a trainee beneath the HER-BC workforce on the Ladies’s Well being Analysis Institute (WHRI), and dealing with an unbelievable all-female workforce that makes the analysis a lot extra significant.
The place do you hope to see this work in 10 years?
In the case of translating analysis into coverage findings, one of many greatest challenges is feasibility. Is my challenge relevant in the actual world? And whether or not it will likely be accepted by the general public and the federal government. Analysis is essential, however it’s equally necessary to show that analysis into one thing actionable that may really profit communities.
One of many suggestions we’ve made is the creation of an built-in healthcare mannequin. Newcomer girls face very distinctive and complicated social determinants of well being, so multidisciplinary healthcare facilities that may deal with these wants are important. Ideally, these facilities could be arrange in districts or areas, offering a mix of physicians, nurse practitioners, social staff, and counselors—multi function house. This might permit communities to entry a extra tailor-made, complete healthcare system.
The problem, after all, is the monetary side. However there’s already proof displaying that built-in healthcare fashions will be efficient. As an illustration, one of many leads at Strong State Co-Op, Mahado, is proposing a healthcare middle via the Afiya Care Heart, which may function a mannequin for any such community-based healthcare. I discover that extremely inspiring, and I hope to see this mannequin expanded.
In the end, in 10 years, I’d like to see this analysis translate into a completely built-in healthcare system that may meet the various wants of immigrant girls. By connecting public well being with coverage in a method that is sensible for these communities, we may create a system that basically works for everybody.
Further notable assets/organizations associated to this work:
Sustain with Aysan’s work on Linkedin
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