Chloe and Suzannah recently attended a fantastic training session run by Cumberland HDRC and Lina Mookerjee from Praxis Therapy, focusing on menopause and it’s impact on Global Majority women.
Lina is a community researcher for the HDRC and her research and work often centres around menopause and how Black and Brown women are often left out of the conversation when it comes to menopause support, and that the care they receive from healthcare professionals is often lacking and not suited to their own unique needs.
Every woman’s body is unique and so menopause symptoms can look vary depending in different factors such as ethnicity. Menopause in general is very under-researched, meaning healthcare professionals often have a limited knowledge of how it affects people and what treatments may work best. 41% of UK universities do not currently provide mandatory menopause education to medicine students.
This research is further limited when it comes to Global Majority women, who experience menopause differently to White women. For example, according to the British Menopause Society, women of Chinese and Japanese ethnicity may suffer more from joint and muscle pains, and women of African and Caribbean descent often experience a longer duration of menopause transition.
There is less documented research on menopause’s impact on Women of Colour, but there is also a difference in how these women are offered treatment. For example, according to Lina Mookerjee’s research, Women of Colour are less likely to be offered treatments like a bone scan, or HRT medication.
There are a number of factors which could be causing this inequality in treatment and menopause support, including:
- Racism amongst healthcare staff
- Language and communication barriers which can mean women don’t always receive the information they need
- A lack of cultural knowledge amongst healthcare staff
- Assumptions that all women have the same experience
- Women feeling embarrassed to talk about their experience to a male GP
- Financial differences. Some women can not afford to pay for treatment such as HRT medication.
Lina also discussed the importance of information sharing, and that in different ethnic communities, knowledge is shared in different ways. For example, White women often get their information from their doctor, books or online. However, Black women prefer to go to their communities and friends and family to find out information.
It’s clear that there is a great need for more education amongst healthcare staff, and for information to be shared by staff in more diverse ways and networks, other than online and in GP surgeries.
Menopause is not something that anyone should go through alone. Healthcare support for those experiencing menopause symptoms should be available to everyone, and should be tailored to their own unique needs.
If you’re going through Menopause and would like some wellbeing tips, you can check out our ‘A-Z of Menopause’.