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Sexual & Reproductive Health for South Asian Newcomer Women

Breaking Barriers: Improving Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Services for South Asian Newcomer Women

About this Project

CASSA is leading a three-year community-based research project titled Breaking Barriers: Improving Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Services for South Asian Newcomer Women. This research focuses on the experiences of South Asian newcomer women—particularly immigrants and refugees who have arrived in Canada within the past five years—and the challenges they face when accessing sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services, including prenatal and postnatal care.

The project will generate evidence to inform the development and advocacy of more culturally safe, trauma-informed, and equitable healthcare services. Specifically, this will include producing a public-facing report, launching a social media campaign, and delivering training sessions for service providers on anti-oppressive and culturally safe care practices.

This project is funded by United Way Greater Toronto and supported by partner organizations including Punjabi Community Health Services, South Asian Women’s Collective, and Laadliyan.

Project Purpose & Objectives

The project aims to address inequities in access to SRH services experienced by South Asian newcomer women, particularly recent immigrants and refugees, by generating community-driven evidence on their lived experiences and using the findings to inform culturally safe, trauma-informed, and anti-oppressive improvements in healthcare.The project seeks to strengthen service responsiveness and contribute to more equitable health outcomes and well-being for newcomer women in Canada.

Key objectives include:

  1. Document lived experiences of accessing care: To explore how South Asian newcomer women experience and navigate SRH services, and to understand the barriers they face, including language challenges, limited information, discrimination, and lack of culturally and religiously competent care.
  2. Examine intersectional influences on care: To analyze how factors such as immigration status, language, socioeconomic conditions, cultural and religious beliefs, and gender norms shape access to care, quality of care, awareness of available resources, and decision-making related to SRH.
  3. Identify systemic barriers and their impacts: ​​To investigate how structural and institutional barriers within healthcare systems—including service availability, policies, and organizational practices—influence service utilization, health outcomes, and overall well-being among South Asian newcomer women.
  4. Generate community-informed solutions: To identify and prioritize interventions and policy recommendations that support trauma-informed, culturally safe, and equitable SRH care, centering the voices and experiences of South Asian newcomer women to ensure solutions reflect their need and priorities.
  5. Translate knowledge into action: To share research findings and policy recommendations through a public-facing report, social media campaign, and targeted knowledge-sharing activities to increase awareness and influence service practices and policy discussions.
  6. Improve access to information: To provide newcomer South Asian women with multilingual, culturally relevant, and accessible education and outreach materials that support care-seeking, navigation, and informed decision-making.
  7. Strengthen provider capacity: To enhance the knowledge and skills of service providers through training on anti-oppressive, culturally safe, and trauma-informed care practices relevant to newcomer women’s experiences.

Disclaimer

The materials produced through this project are informed by the experiences and perspectives of newcomer South Asian women, and by consultations with subject matter experts, made possible through collaborations with community partners. While every effort has been made to accurately reflect these voices, the scope of the study means that not all perspectives of South Asian newcomer women may be fully captured.

Some content may be sensitive or emotionally challenging, including experiences of discrimination, racism, and harmful or oppressive care. Readers are encouraged to prioritize their well-being and engage with the material at a pace that feels safe and manageable.

Ethics Approval

This project has been reviewed and approved by the Community Research Ethics Board. If you feel you have not been treated according to the descriptions in our information, or your rights as a participant in research have been violated during this project, you may contact the Chair, Community Research Ethics Board, at: Centre for Community Based Research| Attn: Community Research Ethics Office |  c/o Conrad Grebel University College|  140  Westmount  Road  North, Waterloo ON N2L3G5 or by email: creoadmin@communityresearchethics.com. 

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