Holly G. Atkinson is with the City University of New York School of Medicine, New York, NY. Deborah Ottenheimer is with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY. Ranit Mishori is with the Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, DC.
Am J Public Health. 2019 Nov;109(11):1523-1527. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2019.305259. Epub 2019 Sep 19.
Female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM/C), an age-old tradition that is still widely practiced around the world, is gaining recognition as an important public health issue in the United States. Increasingly, because of migration, women and girls affected by FGM/C have become members of host communities where the practice is not culturally acceptable.According to recent conservative estimates, more than 513 000 immigrant women and girls living in the United States have undergone or are at risk for FGM/C, a significant increase from the 1990 estimate of 168 000. The arrests of physicians in Michigan in 2017 for performing FGM/C on minors underscores the fact that cutting is happening in the United States.We have identified numerous gaps in our understanding of the magnitude of the problem in the United States and in the availability of scientific data informing a variety of interventions (preventive, clinical, educational, legal). We catalog these major gaps and propose a research agenda that can help public health experts, researchers, clinicians, and other stakeholders to establish priorities as we confront FGM/C as an important health issue affecting hundreds of thousands of women and girls in the United States.
女性生殖器切割（Female Genital Mutilation or Cutting，FGM/C）是一种古老的传统，在全球范围内仍广泛存在，它已成为美国一个重要的公共卫生问题。由于移民的原因，越来越多遭受女性生殖器切割的妇女和女孩成为所在东道社区的成员，而这些社区从文化上无法接受这种做法。根据最近的保守估计，在美国生活的移民妇女和女孩中有超过 51.3 万人经历过或面临女性生殖器切割的风险，这一数字与 1990 年估计的 16.8 万人相比有显著增加。2017 年，密歇根州的医生因对未成年人实施女性生殖器切割而被捕，这突显了在美国进行切割的事实。我们已经发现，我们对美国这一问题的严重程度以及为各种干预措施（预防、临床、教育、法律）提供科学数据的了解存在诸多空白。我们列出了这些主要的差距，并提出了一个研究议程，以帮助公共卫生专家、研究人员、临床医生和其他利益攸关方在面对女性生殖器切割这一重要的健康问题时，确定优先事项，该问题影响了美国成千上万的妇女和女孩。
