Abstract

Mistrust in Western medicine contributes to many individuals noncompliance, avoidance of treatment, or seeking other outlets or alternative treatments. As a result, health outcomes are poorer for those individuals who proactively avoid treatment from health care professionals. Factors that contribute to racial and ethnic health disparities have been accounted for in research and literature; however, immigrant health disparities have not been well studied. The primary purpose of this study was to analyze factors that contributed to Western medicine mistrust among selected African immigrant women in Minnesota. Participants were recruited from community centers, churches, and by snowball sampling within the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area. Data was collected from twenty-one participants who completed the survey instrument. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to collect data from African women who have immigrated to Minnesota and who have had at least one interaction with a health care provider who practices Western medicine. Findings indicated that the majority of the respondents were somewhat likely to trust Western medicine health care professionals and treatments. Many women also specified that they feared prescribed medications and their effectiveness, being used as an experiment, and ill intentions of Western health care practitioners towards Africans.

Advisor

Josephy Visker

Committee Member

Judith Luebke

Committee Member

Mark Windschitl

Date of Degree

2016

Language

english

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Health Science

College

Allied Health and Nursing

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Download

Share

COinS
 

Rights Statement

In Copyright