New Rochelle, NY, July 19, 2016—A new study of American Muslim women from diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds found that the majority of women had delayed seeking medical care due to a perceived lack of female clinicians. Not seeking timely medical care can result in poor health outcomes. The desire to be treated by a female healthcare provider is just one of the religion-related factors that may influence the decisions of Muslim women and are examined in an article in Journal of Women’s Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available open access on the Journal of Women’s Health website.

 

In the article “Predictors of Delayed Healthcare Seeking Among American Muslim Women,” Milkie Vu, Alia Azmat, Tala Radejko, and Aasim Padela, MD, The University of Chicago, IL, evaluated several religion-related factors and socio-demographic characteristics in a sample of more than 250 Muslim women who attend community and religious events. These included religiosity, fatalistic beliefs regarding healthcare, perceived religious discrimination in healthcare encounters, modesty, use of complementary alternative medicine and worship practices for health, and having lived in the U.S. for more or less than 20 years.

 

In the accompany Editorial entitled “Muslim Women’s Preferences in the Medical Setting: How Might They Contribute to Disparities in Health Outcomes?” Erin Marcus, MD, MPH, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, FL, states: “The authors' findings reinforce the importance of gender diversity in the health workforce as an important factor influencing health outcomes.”

 

“The finding that more than half of a diverse, community-based population of American Muslim women—a population comprised of nearly equal numbers of African Americans, Arab Americans, and South Asians—did not receive adequate healthcare shows the potential health disparities linked to religious beliefs,” says Susan G. Kornstein, MD, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Women’s Health, Executive Director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Women’s Health, Richmond, VA, and President of the Academy of Women’s Health.

 

About the Journal
Journal of Women’s Health, published monthly, is a core multidisciplinary journal dedicated to the diseases and conditions that hold greater risk for or are more prevalent among women, as well as diseases that present differently in women. Led by Editor-in-Chief Susan G. Kornstein, MD, Executive Director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Women’s Health, Richmond, VA, and President of the Academy of Women’s Health, the Journal covers the latest advances and clinical applications of new diagnostic procedures and therapeutic protocols for the prevention and management of women’s healthcare issues. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Journal of Women’s Health website. Journal of Women’s Health is the official journal of the Academy of Women’s Health and the Society for Women’s Health Research.

 

About the Academy
Academy of Women’s Health is an interdisciplinary, international association of physicians, nurses, and other health professionals who work across the broad field of women’s health, providing its members with up-to-date advances and options in clinical care that will enable the best outcomes for their women patients. The Academy’s focus includes the dissemination of translational research and evidence-based practices for disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of women across the lifespan.

 

About the Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including LGBT Health, Transgender Health, Population Health Management, and Breastfeeding Medicine. Its biotechnology trade magazine, GEN (Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News), was the first in its field and is today the industry’s most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm’s 80 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.