Grant: Project Grant

Immigrant-refugee and sexually-/gender-diverse (e.g. lesbian, queer, bisexual, trans) women in Canada have poor healthcare experiences, and tend to access health information and services from community agencies because it culturally safe, which means tailored to their needs and preferences. Community agencies include those that help newcomers adjust to life in Canada and provide support to sexually-/gender-diverse women. The overall aim of this study is to understand what is needed to enhance the capacity of community agencies to offer health promotion to these women. More community-based health promotion programs will increase the number of diverse women across Canada who learn about how to prevent disease, connect with others like them for social support, advocate for themselves in the healthcare system, and improve health and wellness. Our team includes researchers, immigrant-refugee and sexually-/gender-diverse women, community agency managers and healthcare professionals. In parallel for both the immigrant-refugee and sexually-/gender-diverse contexts, we will gather information on how to build and sustain community agency health promotion programs from published research, and from interviews with diverse women, community agency managers, researchers, healthcare managers and policy-makers, then survey participants to prioritize the most important strategies that will lead to greater health promotion capacity in community agencies across Canada. This information could be used by community agencies across Canada to develop or improve health promotion programs, and by healthcare managers and policy makers to provide funding and other support to community agencies.