Recorded presentation

Karen L. Anderson, MEd, MPH¹, Maud Easter, MA², and Sang Hee Won¹. (1) Family Planning Advocates of NYS, 17 Elk St., Albany, NY 12207, 518-436-8408, karen@fpaofnys.org, (2) Center for Women in Government and Civil Society, University at Albany, 135 Western Ave., Albany, NY 12222

As in many parts of the United States, the population of immigrants has continued to grow at record levels in New York State. According to the 2000 Census, twenty percent of New York State’s population is foreign-born, including approximately two million foreign-born women. Immigrant women have high levels of employment as caregivers in low-wage jobs, which often do not provide health insurance. Thus, they tend to be medically underserved, and when they do access services, they are likely to face economic, cultural, and linguistic barriers. In many cases, family planning providers are the only available health care facilities for immigrant women. Both family planning providers and immigrant women have identified the dire need to strengthen collaboration at the local level, and to create models for mutual assistance that will help overcome barriers to care. Reaching very diverse communities requires the development of new structures for formal and ongoing collaboration. How can working partnerships be built between family planning providers and immigrant women’s organizations? This paper reports on the promising and innovative models developed in NYS to create and strengthen partnerships between immigrant women’s organizations and the reproductive rights community to promote activism at both the grassroots and state levels. These models provide some of the best practices that can improve and expand access to culturally competent, high-quality reproductive health care services for immigrant women.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify barriers to reproductive health care access for immigrant women.
• Examine the obstacles facing reproductive health providers in delivering culturally-competent services to immigrant women.
• Recognize the important role that partnerships between immigrant women's organizations and family planning providers can play at the local and statewide level in addressing barriers to care.
• Provide examples of best practices identified in the New York experience.

Keywords: Reproductive Health, Immigrant Women

Related Web page: www.fpaofnys.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

Recorded presentation