Abstract
ABSTRACT The understanding that the drivers of inequities are multiple and intersecting is critical for health policy formulation and implementation. An intersectionality analysis reveals these relationships and allows a nuanced grasp of how health inequities are framed and understood. Using global statistics and other examples, the paper argues the significance of an intersectionality analysis in unravelling the disproportionate impact of inequity and the implications for the health and lives of persons experiencing these multiple discriminations. Attention to this, challenges the assumption of homogeneity and helps to visibilize lived realities. A few examples of acts of resistance are cited by the authors that have attempted to amplify the voices and knowledge of those whose realities are otherwise invisibilized by prevailing inequities, policies and discourses. ‘Marginalizing’ health thus implies an intersectional understanding of inequity as well as challenging and changing prevailing socio-political structures.
Highlights
Between May and June 2019, over 150 children died in the Muzaffarpur district of Bihar, a state in eastern India, due to an outbreak of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES), which has been a recurring annual phenomenon during these months for several years
The AES deaths were attributed to a combination of factors such as chronic malnutrition, consumption of unripe litchis, heat wave, and a poorly functioning health care system
It is an important tool for multi-level analysis of intersecting factors, processes and structures impacting health experiences, and its principles lead to questions regarding how, and whose health issues are framed and understood2(18)
Summary
Between May and June 2019, over 150 children died in the Muzaffarpur district of Bihar, a state in eastern India, due to an outbreak of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES), which has been a recurring annual phenomenon during these months for several years now. An analysis of the multiple and intersecting social locations (caste, gender, class, geography) and social determinants (nutrition, poor sanitation,migration, poor health care, lack of awareness) provides insights into the possible differences in health outcomes In this context, it exemplifies the reasons for the higher rates of deaths amongst girls from certain caste groups and provides evidence for policy measures to be undertaken at multiple levels to ensure that such deaths are prevented. It exemplifies the reasons for the higher rates of deaths amongst girls from certain caste groups and provides evidence for policy measures to be undertaken at multiple levels to ensure that such deaths are prevented Such an intersectional analytical framework is helpful in understanding the interaction of people’s diverse social locations and their relationship with structures and systems of power – social, political and economic institutions, including governments, educational institutions, religious institutions, laws and policies (domestic and international), media, etc. It is an important tool for multi-level analysis of intersecting factors, processes and structures impacting health experiences, and its principles lead to questions regarding how, and whose health issues are framed and understood2(18)
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