MMRC Fellows Win McMaster 2022 FHS Graduate Student Awards

Congratulations to MMRC Fellows Susana Ku & Claire Ramlogan-Salanga for each winning an Outstanding Achievement Award at the 2022 McMaster FHS Graduate Students’ Awards Celebration!

Congratulations also to MMRC Fellow Lisa Nussey for winning the Health Sciences Graduate Student Association Impact Award at the 2022 McMaster FHS Graduate Students’ Awards Celebration for their graduate thesis work entitled “Responsibility and Justice: Considerations for Increasing Access to Prenatal Care. An Interpretive Descriptive Study of Health and Service Providers Understandings of Inadequate Prenatal Care in Hamilton”. Supervised by Dr. Liz Darling, Lisa recently graduated from the Health Research Methodology master’s program at McMaster. 

Lisa’s work focusses on care provider perspectives of inadequate prenatal care (IPNC), what should be done about it, and what are the barriers to doing it. The goal of this project was to address this gap in knowledge to inform the development of novel care delivery models that could reduce disparities in access to PNC in Hamilton. Using a Critical Theory lens, an interpretive descriptive study was conducted using individual interviews and focus groups with health and social service providers in Hamilton to explore their understandings of IPNC. Participants viewed IPNC as a small but important phenomenon disproportionately impacting people who are marginalized. The experience of IPNC is chaotic, worrisome and joyful for providers. An interdisciplinary, midwifery-led outreach PNC model would better meet the needs of the client population and providers alike. A Community Centred Care model of PNC embodies and enhances participant suggestions for addressing IPNC. Access to abortion, postpartum care and newborn apprehension require special attention. Peer participation and the impacts of patriarchy and racism must be addressed in the development of future PNC models. The ways in which participants described and proposed intervening in IPNC revealed an individualized understanding of the social determinants of health that is paralleled in existing research on IPNC. This conceptualization of the problem obscures the root causes of disparities in access and warrants future consideration.