Ferreti Gwendolyn, Morales-Alemán Mercedes M, Alemán Carlos E
Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Spelman College.
Department of Community Medicine and Population Health, The University of Alabama.
Peace Confl. 2020 May;26(2):126-135.
Young Latina women (YLW) in Alabama are disproportionately affected by sexual health disparities. However, to access needed reproductive services, YLW must navigate a healthcare landscape that restricts access for youth. YLW also face racialized immigration enforcement in their communities which is designed to attrition the region's emergent Latina/o/x immigrant population. This paper describes the intersectional, structural forces that contribute to experienced systemic violence for YLW as they try to access sexual healthcare services. In 2017, we conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with 20 YLW and 24 key stakeholders (parents, providers, Latino/a/x community leaders etc.) in West Alabama to examine attitudes and perceptions about sexual health and healthcare access (HCA) among YLW in the region. We used purposeful convenience sampling and snowballing to recruit a community-based sample. That is, we purposefully recruited YLW, adjusting through the recruitment period for a diverse sample, who represented the various voices that we were trying to capture in the study (i.e., younger and older adolescents, adolescents born in the U.S. and those born in other countries etc.). Through a focus on YLW's access to sexual/reproductive healthcare, we conclude that YLW experience systemic violence and resulting precarity because laws and health policies restrict access to evidence-based sexual health education and reproductive healthcare services. We discuss implications for future research and policy recommendations.
阿拉巴马州的年轻拉丁裔女性（YLW）在性健康差异方面受到的影响尤为严重。然而，为了获得所需的生殖服务，YLW必须在一个限制年轻人就医的医疗环境中周旋。YLW在其社区还面临种族化的移民执法，这种执法旨在减少该地区新兴的拉丁裔/欧裔/混血移民人口。本文描述了一些交叉性的结构性力量，这些力量在YLW试图获得性健康护理服务时，导致了她们所经历的系统性暴力。2017年，我们对阿拉巴马州西部的20名YLW和24名关键利益相关者（父母、医疗服务提供者、拉丁裔社区领袖等）进行了半结构化定性访谈，以调查该地区YLW对性健康和医疗服务可及性（HCA）的态度和看法。我们采用了立意便利抽样和滚雪球抽样的方法来招募基于社区的样本。也就是说，我们有目的地招募YLW，并在招募过程中进行调整，以获得一个多样化的样本，这些样本代表了我们在研究中试图捕捉的各种声音（即年龄较小和较大的青少年、在美国出生的青少年和在其他国家出生的青少年等）。通过关注YLW获得性/生殖健康护理的情况，我们得出结论，由于法律和健康政策限制了获得循证性健康教育和生殖健康护理服务的机会，YLW经历了系统性暴力并因此面临不稳定状况。我们讨论了对未来研究的启示和政策建议。
