This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Governments across Australia have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars toward women's health services in recent months and years—but having more health services won't help if people don't know they're available or how to access them. Many Australian Muslim women are at risk of falling through the cracks this way; many have experienced discrimination in health care settings (or worry they will).
Others are unsure if certain treatments or health practices align with their religious values, or (for those born overseas) may be unfamiliar with how the Australian health care system works. This can end up discouraging them from seeking the care they need. In some communities, cultural norms also make it hard for women to ask questions openly about sex, contraception, periods, pregnancy and birth.
To address these gaps, we worked with Muslim women in Sydney over two years to co-design and deliver resources aimed at helping Muslim women understand their own reproductive health and available health services. Our report, launched this week, reveals how the mosque itself can be a crucial setting for the delivery of culturally appropriate, evidence-based reproductive health resources for Muslim women in Australia. In the first year of our project (which we called WARDA, meaning "rose" in Arabic), we went to many mosque communities to learn from women.
We worked with female faith leaders and community volunteers at local mosques to start women's "discussion circles" around reproductive health. We wanted to ask these women what reproductive health meant to them, where the gaps were and how to address these gaps. We had an advisory group of faith leaders, health professionals and other community leaders—all of whom were Muslim women in New South Wales.
They helped us interpret the data we collected and develop four faith-informed community workbooks. Our goal was to produce health resources and information that was scientifically sound and evidence-based while also aligning with the religious values of Muslim women. We also included in the booklets details of how women could get more information from existing services and resources, including groups such as Jean Hailes for Women's Health, Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia (PANDA), endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics, Family Planning NSW and local women's health centers.
We then held 26 workshops with 490 women across NSW mosques and Muslim community organizations to present and discuss the four booklets. Of these women: It soon became clear that simply translating mainstream health messaging into other languages was not enough. Many told us they needed faith-informed information and assurance from female faith leaders that the information provided was aligned with their religious values.
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