Economic Marginalization Research Articles

Resilience Amidst Uncertainty: a Sustainable Development Goals Perspective on Undocumented Afghan Women's Experiences in Zeytinburnu

Objective: This study analyzes undocumented Afghan women migrants' experiences in Zeytinburnu, Istanbul, through the UN Sustainable Development Goals framework, emphasizing SDG 5 (Gender Equality), SDG 1 (No Poverty), and SDG 4 (Quality Education). Theoretical Framework: This study combines transnational migration theory, feminist perspectives, and sustainable development concepts. It examines how cultural identity, gender dynamics, and undocumented status intersect in shaping Afghan women migrants' experiences. This intersectional approach reveals the complex realities these women face in their new environment. Method: Qualitative research conducted at Istanbul Afghan Women's Association (IAWA). Methodology included semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders and analysis of 490 IAWA application forms. Thematic analysis was performed, aligning findings with SDGs, particularly emphasizing education, poverty, and gender equality dimensions. Results and Discussion: Findings reveal significant challenges for these women, including social exclusion, economic marginalization, and limited access to education and services due to their undocumented status and persistent patriarchal norms. Traditional gender practices, reinforced by community elders, continue to restrict women's autonomy in the diaspora. Despite these obstacles, the research highlights Afghan women's remarkable resilience in developing survival strategies and maintaining hope for a better future. Research Implications: The study contributes to the growing body of literature on transnational migration and gender studies by providing insights into the lived experiences of undocumented Afghan women in Turkey. It emphasizes the need for intersectional approaches in addressing the multifaceted nature of social exclusion faced by these women. Originality/Value: The study's originality lies in its application of the SDG framework to analyze the specific context of Afghan women migrants in Zeytinburnu, offering a comprehensive understanding of their challenges and potential pathways for sustainable solutions.

Childhood socioeconomic position relates to adult decision-making: Evidence from a large cross-cultural investigation.

Early exposure to poverty may have profound and enduring impacts on developmental trajectories over the lifespan. This study investigated potential links between childhood socioeconomic position, recent economic change, and temporal discounting in a large international cohort (N = 12,951 adults from 61 countries). Temporal discounting refers to the tendency to prefer smaller immediate rewards over larger rewards delivered after a delay, and connects to consequential outcomes including academic achievement, occupational success, and risk-taking behaviors. Consistent with multiple theories about the impacts of stress exposure, individuals who reported lower socioeconomic positions in childhood exhibited greater temporal discounting in adulthood compared to peers who did not. Furthermore, an interaction emerged between childhood socioeconomic position and recent economic change, such that the steepest temporal discounting was found among those from lower childhood socioeconomic positions who also recently experienced negative economic change as a result of the COVID pandemic. These associations remained significant even when accounting for potentially confounding factors like education level and current employment. Findings provide new evidence that childhood socioeconomic position relates to greater temporal discounting and steeper devaluation of future rewards later in adulthood, particularly in response to contemporaneous economic change. This suggests childhood socioeconomic position may have longer-term impacts on developmental trajectories. Speculatively, childhood socioeconomic position may shape adult behavior through increased life stress, diminished access to resources, and lower perceived trust and reliability in social systems. These findings underscore the long-term implications of socioeconomic gaps, cycles of disadvantage and economic marginalization.

Gender and migration: A continuum of gender-based violence echoing across the Sinai Desert and into Israel

Gender-based violence (GBV) is widespread globally and is based on social roles. These social roles represent society’s expectations of men and women carrying out stereotyped functions and behaviours. These gendered social expectations vary across culture, space and time. Drawing from an empirical study in Israel and building on the previous literature on these issues, this qualitative and interdisciplinary article identifies various forms of GBV along Eritrean women’s journey from their home country into Israel. The empirical work helps to examine the findings of previous theoretical studies. This article establishes that there is a continuum of violence for women, especially refugees and asylum seekers, rooted in the standard system of oppression – patriarchy. This has triggered the flight and trafficking of refugees from Eritrea through the Sinai Desert and into Israel. The article argues that structural and cultural violence emanating from both the hosted community and the host community play significant roles in allowing the circumstances for GBV to thrive throughout the entire refugee cycle. What can be seen is the creation of multiple layers of vulnerabilities, particularly the specific social–legal–economic marginalization of segments of the population, including Eritrean asylum-seeking women. Reacting to this continuum of violence, many participants in the study argued that it was necessary to adopt strategies to create a continuum of resilience and resistance grounded on women’s sorority, support and agency.

A scoping review of social work with Roma and Traveller communities: introducing the ROMA model

ABSTRACT Although The Strasbourg Declaration on Roma presents a list of priorities that aim to address the social and economic marginalisation of Roma and Traveller people in Europe, the contribution that social work is making to efforts to achieve these aims is unclear. Therefore, a scoping review of current scholarship was conducted to summarise the existing body of knowledge and identify how social work can help to achieve The Strasbourg Declaration on Roma. The databases Academic Search Complete, SAGE Journals Online, ScienceDirect, and Social Care Online were searched resulting in the inclusion of 20 articles published between 2010 and 2024. Two themes were identified: (1) Antigypsyism and (2) Restorative Practice. The findings show that restorative practices could help to promote human rights and the social and intercultural inclusion of Roma and Travellers in Europe. Informed by the articles included in this scoping review, the ‘Reflection, Objective, Movement and Action (ROMA) Model: A Framework for Restorative Practice is introduced as a solution to enable social workers to achieve The Strasbourg Declaration on Roma and future national strategic frameworks for Roma and Traveller inclusion.

Barriers and facilitators to remote healthcare services use: perspectives of women and providers

Abstract Background The remote health services (RHS) proliferation raises concerns regarding relatively low use among minorities. Arab women in Israel belong to a minority that experiences health disparities, stigmatization, social and economic marginalization. This study aimed to identify barriers and facilitating means to RHS use relevant to Arab women in Israel from the perspective of women, primary care physicians (PCPs), and nurses. Methods Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 Arab women, 18 PCPs, and 4 nurses from different parts in Israel between December 2023-March 2024. We used a positive deviance approach by interviewing 14 women who succeeded in using RHS and 11 who did not. Interviews were audiotaped, transcribed, and thematically analyzed using Atlas qualitative analysis software. Findings The data distilled three main barriers to RHS use: sociocultural- importance of close relations with PCPs, privacy concerns of revealing the body or conversing with unfamiliar physicians, strict supervision by the family (Bedouin society); logistical-limited internet access and infrastructure, personal- unawareness to RHS, digital literacy, normative conceptions of limited quality of care and believing that only some health conditions are suitable for RHS. Facilitating means to RHS use: gender roles-women’s role as family health caretakers, mothers maintaining work-family balance and younger women generation feeling responsible for the older generation RHS adoption, accessibility- wider access to care due to limited transportation. Conclusions It is important to identify facilitating conditions (e.g., training opportunities, social, technological support), cultured elements (gender roles, limited mobility), and trust to adopting RHS by minority populations. The study provide data for developing requirements to ensure more equitable access to RHS to Arab women including addressing privacy concerns, guidelines for RHS-related information dissemination, and for RHS providers. Key messages • The findings help develop approaches and means to improve RHS use for Arab women from diverse backgrounds by identifying barriers associated with access, culture, and normative conceptions. • Developing RHS systems into routine care must ensure equitable use across social groups and address economic, logistical, and sociocultural barriers and guidelines for RHS information dissemination.

Effect of Incorporating Hibiscus sabdariffa Seed Flour (Red Variety) on Zootechnical Performance of Broilers Chickens Cobb500 Strain

The aim of this study was to evaluate effects of incorporating red Hibiscus sabdariffa seed meal into the feed ration on the growth performance, carcass characteristics and economic margins of broiler chickens in Côte d'Ivoire. To achieve this, 237 broiler chicks of the Cobb500 strain, two (2) weeks old, were divided into three (3) lots of 79 birds each. lot 1 was fed with ration that did not contain Hibiscus sabdariffa red variety (HSR0) seed meal. Lots 2 and 3 were fed respectively by ration HSR 2% and HSR 4% by which contain 2 % and 4 % of Hibiscus sabdariffa seed meal respectively. The results showed that the inclusion of Hibiscus sabdariffa seeds significantly reduced food consumption in subjects fed HSR 2 and HSR 4 compared with ration HSR 0 (control). It varied from 38.71 ± 1.26 g/d to 161 ± 5.08 g/d for lot 2 and from 37.85 ± 1.16 g/d to 148 ± 6.08 g/d for lot 3 compared with 39.8±1.3 g/dr to 172 ± 7.2 g/d for lot 1. On other hand, the subjects in lot 2 achieved better growth performance than the other lots. They recorded an average weight of 2,334±208.6 g compared with 2,213 ± 170.78 g and 1,958 ± 182.57 g for lots 1 and 3 respectively. Over the 4-week period, the highest mortality rate was observed in lot 1, at 10.13 %. No negative effect was observed on the carcass yield of chickens fed Hibiscus sabdariffa meal. In economic terms, incorporation reduced the production cost of broilers. In conclusion Hibiscus sabdariffa seeds can therefore be incorporated up to 2% into chicken rations without causing any significant loss in chicken weight. Studies need to be carried out to improve the organoleptic quality of Hibiscus sabdariffa seeds.

Crisis, Confidence, and Conserving Resources: Examining How Adult Education Students Navigate Stressors and Marginalization

Social and systemic barriers contribute to students’ attrition from K-12 education and enrollment in adult basic education (ABE) via the reduction of available resources. Informed by Conservation of Resources Theory, the current study assessed the impact of stress-related risk factors, including trauma and COVID-19-related stress, on ABE students’ ( N = 227) vocational confidence. Understanding these factors can inform ABE program development and retention efforts. Survey methods with convenience sampling were used for data collection. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationship between trauma exposure and COVID-19-related stress on the outcomes of alcohol use, as a stress response, as well as vocational confidence. On average, past traumatic experiences were more common among ABE students who reported greater social or economic marginalization, especially those identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual or with a history of being unhoused. More past traumatic experiences predicted higher COVID-19-related stress and alcohol use. Higher COVID-19-related stress, in turn, predicted lower vocational confidence. ABE students experiencing marginalization face compounded barriers to achieving their educational and vocational goals when they experience trauma exposure and subsequent stressors. Based on findings, we make practice recommendations for ABE centers, including targeted psychoeducational resources to offset social and systemic stressors that may bolster the vocational confidence of enrolled students.

Urban Challenges Faced by the Hijra Community

This research focuses on the challenges faced by the hijra community in urban India, touching upon issues such as economic marginalization, discrimination, and the point of intersection between religion and caste, all within the LGBTQ+ context. Hijras are individuals who are born biologically male, and identify as trans women, and live in small, secretive communities across South Asia, forming a very distinctive cultural group. This study draws on in-depth interviews with two members of the hijra community in Mumbai, India, offering a first-hand account of their struggles. The findings of this research revealed that many members of the hijra community confine themselves to low-income hustles such as begging, or sex work, due to rampant discrimination that exists in the heteronormative post-colonial South-Asian societies. This also contributes to their lack of access to healthcare, safe housing, protection from hate crimes, and a declining mental health on a community-wide level. Despite legal progress, many challenges related to identity recognition and humanizing the community persist. This introductory article thus advocates for various empowerment initiatives to facilitate a more inclusive and equitable environment for hijra individuals in urban India.

Unraveling the intriguing potential of protein-rich microbial biostimulants for horticultural crops

Nutritional security and minimizing the impact of farming practices on the environment are major challenges in modern farming systems. Currently, the horticulture sector is growing fast and moving towards sustainability and profitability. Indiscriminate and improper use of chemical inputs to ensure high yields of horticultural products could lead to significant contamination of soil and water bodies. Under these circumstances, farmers must optimize their input management to reduce pollution and preserve the economic margin by following sustainable production practices. The use of precision horticulture techniques is more sustainable than conventional to intensive farming methods. Among the various eco-friendly inputs, plant biostimulants are highly effective and can enhance plant growth and production as well as mitigate the adverse effects of abiotic stressors. Protein Hydrolysates (PHs) are a significant class of plant biostimulants based on amino acid and peptide mixtures. Because of their beneficial effects on crop performance, PHs has drawn increased amounts of attention recently. Compared with other biostimulants microbial biostimulants are more prevalent in crop production. A new approach is the formulation of a mixture of plant growth-promoting microorganisms/microbe-derived metabolites and protein hydrolysates as single biostimulants, to nourish the soil, plants and microbes. This review presents a thorough summary of recent research on the postulated modes of action of PHs and microbial biostimulants in horticultural crops. Furthermore, this study highlights the potential of protein hydrolysates and microbial biostimulants and the potential of the protein-rich microbial biostimulants to make horticulture more profitable and to safeguard the environment.

Land Transformations in Irpinia (Southern Italy): A Tale on the Socio-Economic Dynamics Acting in a Marginal Area of the Mediterranean Europe

Marginal areas in economically advanced countries are a critical issue that European and national policies have been addressing for some time. These areas are affected by depopulation, infrastructural gaps and labor systems that do not reach the corresponding national levels and where often agriculture still plays a critical role. In Italy, despite the fact that the National Strategy for Inner Areas (SNAI) has been active for about a decade with the aim of increasing the territorial cohesion of these fragile areas, rather limited results have been achieved in terms of halting economic marginalization and demographic decline. In this specific context, our work is aimed at analyzing land use changes, the loss of ecosystem services and demographic trends in a Mediterranean region (Irpinia—Southern Italy) on district and municipal scales in the last 30 years (1990–2018) to capture current, subtle socio-economic dynamics. The analysis carried out has indicated a substantial increase in urban areas due to the development of new industrial areas and discontinuous urban fabric (urban sprawl) at the expense of natural areas (mainly meadows and shrublands). The agricultural areas have remained substantially unchanged in terms of extension, with a slight increase in heterogeneous agricultural areas and an expansion of high-value crops (vineyards), that are the most suitable for multifunctional agriculture activities (experiential and rural tourism). The analysis of the demographic trend has highlighted a widespread phenomenon of depopulation, with the exception of those municipalities who economically orbit around the provincial capital of Avellino. The municipalities in depopulation are mostly located in the inner areas characterized by a more rugged morphology and infrastructural gaps. Unexpectedly, most of municipalities show a significant anticorrelation among the population and agricultural areas which is an indicator of social and economic phenomena as complex as they are underestimated. As a final step, this analysis highlights also a loss of carbon storage mainly attributable to the soil sealing of large areas. This study can help to comprehensively understand the conditions of marginal areas in Mediterranean Europe over recent decades in the light of the main socio-economic dynamics to better direct efforts towards the containment of the human capital hemorrhage, consisting of persistently negative natural and migratory rates, and the sustainable empowerment of these geo-economic peripheries.

“Too Much Trouble”: Transgender and Nonbinary People's Experiences of Stigmatization and Stigma Avoidance in the Workplace

Transgender and nonbinary (TNB) people in the U.S. navigate significant employment and economic inequities. Gaps in knowledge about their workplace experiences limit our broader understanding of how social inequality is interactionally constructed through employment contexts. We conducted and analyzed interviews with 26 TNB young adults. Routine hiring processes and structural constraints made participants vulnerable to interactional stigmatization and subsequent discrimination, with deleterious consequences for employment as well as mental health. Participants deployed a variety of strategies to avoid or resist anticipated stigma, including exiting the workforce or changing careers. One's ability to avoid stigmatization at work was partially shaped by structural and managerial support, organizational form, and one's gender and gender conformity. Beyond contributing to economic inequality by limiting job and career options, our findings suggest that these social processes comprise minority stressors that diminish the well-being of TNB participants and exacerbate their economic marginalization. In contributing empirical insight into the experiences of TNB people, we demonstrate the salience of stigmatization and stigma avoidance strategies for social closure within organizations and thereby advance sociological understanding of the relational generation of inequality at work.

Developing personas to inform the design of digital interventions for perinatal mental health.

Digital interventions are increasingly in demand to address mental health concerns, with significant potential to reach populations that disproportionately face barriers to accessing mental health care. Challenges with user engagement, however, persist. The goal of this study was to develop user personas to inform the development of a digital mental health intervention (DMHI) for a perinatal population. We used participatory User-Centered Design (UCD) methods to generate and validate personas (ie, representative profiles of potential users). We applied this methodology to a case example of an Anxiety Sensitivity Intervention. Phases included (1) Characteristic identification, (2) Persona generation, (3) Persona consolidation, (4) Persona validation, and (5) Persona refinement. Advisory Council members with lived expertise of perinatal mental health conditions generated 6 personas. We used cluster analysis and qualitative analysis to consolidate personas. We used participant interviews with perinatal individuals experiencing depression or anxiety and economic marginalization (n = 12) to qualitatively validate and refine these personas. We identified 4 user personas with potentially unique design needs that we characterized as being "Resilient," "Lonely," "Overwhelmed," and "Aware." Personas generated through this process had distinct characteristics and design implications including the need to prioritize (1) content personalization, (2) additional content describing support options and resources (eg, doulas, midwives), (3) careful consideration of the type of information provided by users, and (4) transparent options for information and data sharing. DMHIs will need to be adapted for relevance for a perinatal population. The personas we developed are suggestive of the need for design considerations specific to distinct potential user groups within this population.

Rome Fellowships: Splendid isolation? Mobility and economic marginality in the Alps during the Roman era

Rome Fellowships: Splendid isolation? Mobility and economic marginality in the Alps during the Roman era

Belongingness in higher education: Fostering decent education to sustain academic progress and equitable access to decent work

Given the critical role of higher education in fostering social mobility and access to decent work, our study investigates how the college experience, shaped by social marginalization and economic constraints, influences students’ academic engagement and work volition before and during COVID-19. Drawing from the psychology of working theory (PWT) and decent education, we assess the mediating role of school belongingness and the moderating effect of COVID-19 timing through structural equation modeling. Our findings suggest that COVID-19 exacerbated the negative effect of social and economic marginalization on work volition and the negative effects of economic constraints on academic engagement, while also diminishing the moderating effect of school belongingness. These insights are crucial considering the profound disruptions in higher education due to the pandemic and underscore the importance of fostering school belongingness as a component of decent education to sustain student engagement and positive views of their work futures.

Short communication: Dairy Victory™ Platform: A Novel Benchmarking Platform to Empower Economic Decisions on Dairy Farms.

In the face of diminishing economic margins, dairy farmers globally are compelled to maintain economic competitiveness. Benchmarking emerges as a strategic tool to establish new, achievable improvement objectives that balance ambition with practicality. This typically requires integrating diverse data sources such as feed, milk production, diet, and market prices. However, many farms lack essential, cow-level data like daily milk output and milk income over feed cost (IOFC), which hampers economic performance visibility and informed decision-making. To address this challenge, we introduce “Dairy Victory™ platform (DVP)” a novel cloud-based benchmarking platform designed to simplify complex analyses. The DVP uniquely calculates zootechnical and economic key performance indicators (KPIs) at the cow and herd levels and benchmarks these against a dynamically selected cohort of farms, facilitating comparisons across various farm sizes, and milk production levels. The primary objective of this paper is to demonstrate the utility of DVP as a decision-making tool in supporting farmers and consultants with both operational and strategic decisions. It emphasizes leveraging benchmarking information to enhance decision-making processes, thereby highlighting the significant value that DVP brings to farmers, consultants, and dairy farm stakeholders. Our study analyzed data from 712 farms from December 2023, focusing on several KPIs, such as milk production, milk quality, feed efficiency, and IOFC using Dairy Herd Improvement (DHI) records. This approach showcases DV's ability to utilize minimal data inputs for detailed analysis, leveraging peer performance to set desirable and/or achievable goals. We present a case study demonstrating how the DVP platform can guide dairy farms using anonymized peer data. This approach enables users to potentially improve their IOFC by up to 35%. Our findings highlight DVP's potential as a powerful tool for generating insightful analyses, simulations, and recommendations, primarily from test-day data, but also integrated with market and estimated data. This supports more strategic decision-making in dairy management, including automatic goal-setting based on peer performance.

Analysis of Disseminating Intangible Cultural Heritage to ASEAN Countries Through AIGC: The Case of Chinese Tea Culture

Intangible cultural heritage represents a vital aspect of global cultural diversity, embodying historical wisdom and identity across various regions. Chinese tea culture exemplifies this heritage with its unique traditions of tea-making, teaware craftsmanship, and philosophical underpinnings. However, globalization presents challenges such as language barriers, inefficiencies in traditional transmission methods, and economic marginalization. Artificial Intelligence-Generated Content (AIGC) emerges as a transformative tool to address these challenges, utilizing machine learning and natural language processing to tailor cultural content and enhance its global dissemination. This paper explores the impact of AIGC on the promotion of Chinese tea culture in ASEAN countries, highlighting its role in broadening cultural influence through innovative technologies like virtual reality and augmented reality. The integration of tea culture into daily life in ASEAN nations, particularly in Singapore and Malaysia, underscores its resonance and acceptance, facilitated further by digital platforms and social media. As AIGC continues to evolve, future research should focus on ethical considerations and methodologies for preserving cultural authenticity while leveraging technological advancements.

Flags, Verdicts and Texts: Dissident Narratives and Literary Mandates for Re-Writing Empire

Researchers theorising the intersection and intertextuality between literature and law have explored and analysed democracy, governance, and trust from diverse analytical approaches. Political and legal structures are undergoing polycrises and governance is assailed by wicked policy problems, while democratic norms and legitimacy are eroded. Trust—in all its elasticity—is increasingly polarised among groups and linked to ethnic, cultural, and place-based identities and resentments. Past and present experiences in the lace of memory show that racial categories have persisted into the postcolonial chronos, and we need to question what this means for the rhizome of democracy. New ideas and identities challenge how democracy can represent diverse groups and interests, emphasising the nourishing and symbiotic relationships between literature and law within the context of decolonising notions of global-glocal knowledge economies. Governance and legal architecture are held hostage by powerful interest groups, and axiomatic aspirations to kairos and trust in the fair distribution of wealth and resources for the institutionalisation of democracy have been enfeebled. New forms of democratic participation are emerging which challenge the concepts and premises of choice and plurality. Repeated pressures to understand major crises such as criminal and gendered violence where geopolitical instabilities weaken trust in the capacity of democratic processes have not provided acceptable and socially just verdicts. If external pressures on democratic institutions are growing, criticisms against forms of poor governance (e.g., corruption, presidential personalisation of the state, short-termism, polarisation) are also increasingly made against legal and political institutions. New expressions of distrust in flags and resistance against legal, cultural, and economic powers are immanent in literary texts. This article uses Native Son, Mating Birds, and The Trial of Dedan Kimathi to address the following question: What are the pre-requisites and co-requisites for democracy and socially just governance to flourish in legal and literary situations of heightened economic marginalisation, extreme cultural oppressions, and diminishing political legitimacy? The nexus and intersectionality between legal and literary textual structures allow for an analysis of the role and impact of social, cultural, political, and juridical reformulations in the three selected texts. I argue that the (counter)story, as interdisciplinary method, is thus tasked (and suffused) with immense possibilities.

Exploring the Connection between Social Housing and Employment: A Scoping Review.

Adequate housing is a social determinant of health and well-being, providing stability from which people can engage in important life activities, including self-care and productivity. Social housing is a system-level intervention that aims to provide affordable housing to people vulnerable to experiencing social and economic marginalisation. Given the importance of employment to social-economic status and overall health and well-being, we sought to better understand the available knowledge and research related to employment and living in a social housing environment. We used scoping review methodology to explore peer-reviewed research published between 2012-2022 regarding social housing and employment, identifying 29 relevant articles. Using the Psychology of Working Theory and neighbourhood effects as interpretive theoretical frameworks, we analysed the extracted data. Overall, the results affirmed that social housing residents have low employment rates conceptualised as related to the complex interplay of a range of personal and environmental factors. Most published literature was quantitative and originated from the United States. Policy and research implications are discussed, including the need for more multifaceted, person-centred interventions that support employment and ultimately promote health and quality of life for social housing residents.

Barriers to HIV Care among Transgender Sex Workers of Colour in the USA and Canada: An Intersectional Scoping Review

Objectives In 2018, HIV prevalence among transgender women of color in the USA was 14.11%, with similar severe trends observed in Canada. This highlights the persistent challenge of HIV/AIDS in both countries, particularly for transgender sex workers of color (TSWOC), who face significant barriers to accessing crucial HIV/AIDS care services due to stigma, systemic discrimination, and biased healthcare practices. To address these issues, a scoping review was undertaken to explore the specific barriers to HIV/AIDS care experienced by TSWOC in the United States and Canada. Methods After various database searches (MEDLINE, PubMed, and Google Scholar) using the PRISMA-ScR methodology, 47 studies were extracted. Studies were then screened on Covidence by using the set inclusion and exclusion criteria. After screening, fifteen studies met the criteria. Results The results were thematically organized using an intersectionality-grounded socio-ecological model. Results revealed individual-level challenges of internalized stigma, interpersonal issues with biased healthcare providers, and community-level problems such as lack of support and enduring stigma. Notable structural barriers, consistent across studies, included homelessness, economic marginalization, and institutional transphobia. Institutionalized cisnormativity in healthcare was also found to exacerbate these challenges. Conclusions The findings underscore a feedback loop intensifying HIV/AIDS burdens within TSWOC due to intersecting stigmas and structural disparities. The review advocates for trans-specific and trans-inclusive HIV/AIDS services to address unique challenges, emphasizing the imperative for holistic, trauma-informed HIV care for this underserved population.

Intersectionality and Caregiving: The Exclusion Experience and Coping Resources of Immigrant Women Caring for a Family Member With Severe Mental Illness.

Intersectionality has become a central analytical framework in the study of exclusion and empowerment experiences among women from marginalized communities. However, the relevance of intersectionality to informal caregiving in mental healthcare has hardly been explored to date. The purpose of the current study is to examine the exclusion experiences and coping resources of immigrant women caring for a family member with a severe mental illness (SMI) through the lens of intersectionality theory. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 26 informal female immigrant caregivers from the former Soviet Union residing in Israel. The interviews were analyzed using a qualitative content approach. The findings revealed that the participants experienced stigma and exclusion in several intersecting categories: economic marginalization of immigrant single mothers, ethnic and gender-based stigma of Russian-speaking women, gender-based domestic violence, and mental health stigma by professionals. The participants' coping resources included spirituality and religious faith, support groups, and social activism. The study provides insights into the burdens and rewards experienced by female immigrant caregivers of family members with SMI through the lens of intersectionality theory. Implications for adapting services to the contextual characteristics of female immigrant caregivers and minimizing intersectional stigma and inequities in informal healthcare are discussed.