Kalbasi-Ashtari, Shaida (2015-04). Invisible Minority: Experience of Middle Eastern American Women in Using Health Care Services. Doctoral Dissertation.
Thesis
Issues related to the experiences of minority populations have received increasing attention during the last few decades. The research has been mostly focused on minority populations that are known to the U.S. general population including Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, and African Americans. However, the Middle Eastern American population has received little attention. As the research on health disparities advances, there has been a growing attempt to reduce disparities that cause Middle Eastern populations to have chronic or life-threatening diseases. Some of these research studies have looked at the experiences of discrimination as a factor that would make a difference in the health of this population. While these studies are important, they usually engage a quantitative research method that is not fully equipped to evaluate the experiences of discrimination in a fuller sense. Addressing this gap in the literature, I conducted 30 in-depth interviews with Middle Eastern American women about their experiences with the U.S. health care system. Based on these interviews, there seem to be signs of anti-Middle Eastern racial framing among health care professionals that often caused significant problems for these respondents in their attempts to access the U.S. health care system.
