School of Social Work, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL 61820, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Dec 30;20(1):685. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20010685.
To conduct a scoping review to determine how past studies have applied the theory of intersectionality, a critical feminist research paradigm, to understand the physical health and mental health outcomes of perinatal people as a step toward addressing maternal health disparities and injustice. The study includes a review of existing research on maternal physical and mental health outcomes, presents the strengths and limitations of existing studies, and provides recommendations on best practices in applying intersectionality in research to address systemic issues and improve outcomes for the perinatal population.
We conducted an extensive literature search across four search engines, yielding 28 publications using the intersectionality framework that focused on the outcomes of perinatal people, with a total sample of 9,856,042 participants. We examined how these studies applied intersectionality and evaluated them based on three areas: conceptualization, research method, and interpretation/findings.
Our findings indicate that maternal health researchers have provided good descriptions of the interaction of systemic inequalities and have used analysis that allows for the examination of interlocking and mutually reinforcing social positions or systems. We find that improvement is needed in the areas of conceptualization, reflexivity, and understanding of power structure. Recommendations are provided in the form of a checklist to guide future research toward an impactful approach to addressing perinatal health disparities.
Our scoping review has implications for improving applied health research to address perinatal health disparities, mortality, and morbidity. Recommendations are given along with references to other tools, and a guidance checklist is provided to support scholars in creating an impactful approach to applying intersectionality in the goal of addressing maternal health disparities.
进行范围综述，以确定过去的研究如何应用交叉性理论，这是一种重要的女性主义研究范式，以了解围产期人群的身体健康和心理健康结果，以此作为解决孕产妇健康差异和不公正问题的一步。该研究包括对现有孕产妇身体健康和心理健康结果研究的综述，展示现有研究的优势和局限性，并就如何在研究中应用交叉性以解决系统性问题和改善围产期人群的结果提供最佳实践建议。
我们在四个搜索引擎上进行了广泛的文献搜索，共检索到 28 篇使用交叉性框架的围产期人群结果研究，总样本量为 9856042 人。我们检查了这些研究如何应用交叉性，并根据三个方面对其进行评估：概念化、研究方法和解释/发现。
我们的研究结果表明，孕产妇健康研究人员对系统性不平等的相互作用提供了很好的描述，并使用了允许检查相互关联和相互加强的社会地位或系统的分析方法。我们发现，在概念化、反思和理解权力结构方面需要改进。我们以检查表的形式提供了建议，以指导未来的研究朝着解决围产期健康差异的有影响力的方法发展。
我们的范围综述对改善应用健康研究以解决围产期健康差异、死亡率和发病率具有重要意义。我们提供了建议，并引用了其他工具，以及一份指导清单，以支持学者们采用有影响力的方法来应用交叉性，以解决孕产妇健康差异问题。
