Indigenous women living with HIV experience everyday incidents of racism that impede their access to care disproportionately to other groups, according to a study involving more than 1,400 women across Canada.
This contributes to a loss of Indigenous women along the HIV “cascade of care” – a term used to describe clinical stages of treatment such as diagnosis, retention in care and viral suppression – at a markedly higher rate than other than other ethnicities (-25 per cent compared with -15 per cent to -16 per cent).
“One of the things that came out, quite fascinatingly, in our study was that Indigenous women did have higher attrition rates,” said Angela Kaida, an associate researcher at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (BC-CfE), an associate professor at Simon Fraser University (SFU) and senior author of the study.
“But when we factored in experiences of racism – not [ethnicity itself] but how much racism you’re encountering in your everyday life – that’s really what was causing the effect.”
Examples include prejudiced comments from health-care providers and disrespect for cultural traditions.
The study’s finding highlights the need for more Indigenous peers in the planning and delivery of such HIV care as well as culturally relevant services in general for Canada’s Indigenous people, Dr. Kaida said.