Module 5: Hmong Americans and Health
Have Hmong Americans found home in the United States?
This module focuses on Hmong experiences with health care in the United States. It shows how Hmong Americans experience racism in health care through mistreatment and negative experiences, often based on the belief that their culture is not compatible with Western medicine. The module also discusses how Hmong Americans are navigating the health care system, practicing their ancestral systems of medicine such as asserting shaman and herbal healing beliefs, and bridging multiple scales of care for the health of the community. It explores how access to Western medicine and health care has saved many Hmong lives while also exposing Hmong as a whole to disproportionate levels of negative health outcomes.
What are the pressing health issues Hmong Americans are more likely to experience?
How are illness and health care access linked to racism in the United States?
What are the different ways Hmong Americans enact care that exists outside of—but may also be complementary to—the medical system?
