Women's experiences of discrimination and the impact on health: research

Context for the research

The Women's Health Plan for 2021-2024 aims to improve health outcomes and health services for all women and girls in Scotland. It is underpinned by the acknowledgement that women face particular health inequalities and disadvantages because they are women.

The Economic and Social Research Council funded an embedded researcher fellowship, in which an academic fellow from the University of Bristol was appointed between April 2022 and June 2023 to lead a research series on women's health inequalities within the Scottish Government. This research project was developed to address a policy action under Chapter 9.5. Gender and Health of the Women's Health Plan, which outlines the priority to 'reduce inequalities in outcomes for women's general health'. The two-phase qualitative project, outlined in this report, was developed to contribute to Action 59 in the Plan:

• To build an evidence base on women's health inequalities, with specific focus on the impact of sexism, racism, ableism, and other forms of discrimination including homophobia and transphobia on women's health.

This is a broad action that cannot be fully addressed within the time period of the fellowship. Therefore, the academic fellow developed the research in this report that would provide a meaningful contribution to the action and a steer for future iterations of the Women's Health Plan. The research approach and decisions made around what to focus on in relation to the action are described and justified throughout this report.

This report is split into three parts. Part 1 reviews the current evidence base on women's health inequalities and discrimination and provides a rationale for the qualitative two-phased research approach. Part 2 presents the methods and findings of the first phase of the research – scoping focus groups with women from different backgrounds. Part 3 presents a further, more focused evidence review as well as the methods and findings for the second phase – a more substantive piece of work using in-depth qualitative interviews with a subset of women (women aged 16-25).

All phases of the project were conducted in partnership with a stakeholder group connected to the Women's Health Plan: The Health and Social Care Alliance, hereafter referred to as the ALLIANCE. The work was guided by a Research Advisory Group, made up of policy and research colleagues in the Scottish Government. Regular meetings were held with both the ALLIANCE and the Research Advisory Group and they reviewed all the research documents.