Women’s healthcare must be trauma informed to remove access barriers

Tackling inequalities in women’s health is an ethical imperative. I applaud Rahangdale and colleagues’ assertion that eliminating cervical cancer as a global public health problem requires equitable action.1I would like to see trauma informed women’s health to be at the forefront in such statements of what equitable action must embolden. The global prevalence of gender based violence is inextricably linked to the barriers that women experience in accessing healthcare.2 Gender based violence is framed by war, conflicts, crises, structural forms of violence, silencing, and the overall geopolitical and historic-cultural system, which means that inequality for women is universal in its presence.3 There are symbols and signs in a society that affect how women who survive gender based violence individually embody and narrate their experiences.4 The psychological effects of traumas related to gender based violence are well recognised.5The nature of women’s healthcare—and thus, the effort to eliminate cervical cancer—unequivocally increases vulnerability…
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